Survival
by Ronon'sRascal78
Summary: A totally different character,coming in with the refugees. What will happen when she meets Jake and when Emily sees she has been traveling closely with Roger?
1. Chapter 1

**Survival**

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Timeline : 200x1129 Bombs 60

Warnings : Mild language and imagery.

Summary: At the moment I'm not sure how long this is going to go for or really what is going to happen. All I know is that I didn't want to tempt fate by either doing an H/J story or God forbid an E/J one. So I decided to bring in a totally different character, who will meet Jake and who knows what will happen… I do know that I'm paying Emily back for her disregard of Roger in this though! But that's just me; I'm an evil girl ;)

This is Alternate Universe with Alternate Characters, although I might touch on the canon version sometimes just to ground myself with the time line. I'm terrible at forgetting what I write!

Feedback : Yes please! The more the better!

Chapter one

One foot after the other…Drag… Put down….Drag again…. The girl's feet had no feeling anymore, and they were fast getting even less feeling remaining.

She shifted the weight of the slight 6 yr old girl on her hip up a little, just to take the weight off her hipbone for a few seconds. Even though the little girl barely weighed more than a sack of potatoes, such a long time carrying her was still tiresome.

They had been walking… Walking over fields, roads, farms and muddy ditches for weeks now… The girl was scared that they were never going to stop walking, and if they did, it would end with her collapsing onto the ground and never getting up again. She couldn't do that. Her kids needed her more than anything else and she wouldn't leave them without a mother.

Her foot slipped a little on the rough gravel of the dirt road and she nearly lost her balance. She would certainly have lost it and fallen if it weren't for the equally shaky man walking next to her who quickly grabbed her elbow to steady her. The girl looked over at him, thanking God silently that he was on the same flight as she was that fateful day; otherwise she would never have gotten this far.

Her best friend and her eldest daughter's namesake Jessica was on the same flight too, they were heading to Wichita to visit a mutual friend there. Jessica was a third year medical student at one of the best universities in Missouri, so she had been an invaluable help along this long hard road.

"Thank you, Roger." She spoke in a near whisper; her throat was as dry as it could possibly be. No water for nearly 4 days would do that to any person, she was sure. She looked at her 3 yr old son, who was being carried by Roger. His eyes were closed yet again and he had no color in his face. Praying for a miracle, the girl reached over with what little strength she had and pressed a tiny kiss to his little hand. This was not what she had in mind when she flew over to the USA to see her friends in St Louis and Wichita.

The voice next to her, rough and gravelly, shook her out of her reverie.

"You ok Riss? Hopefully it's not long now till we get there. " Roger spoke in what he hoped was a slightly upbeat voice, even though he didn't have much faith himself, he knew that he had to keep up the morale of everyone else, not just this young mother.

Riss spoke with what seemed like the last of her energy.

"Yeah, I guess I'm ok. There isn't much I can be other than okay at the moment is there?" Riss gave Roger a look of pure fatigue coupled with a little upward curve of the corner of her mouth. It was all the reassurance she could manage at the time and as far as she was concerned was the most she could manage ever again with the way she felt at the moment.

She looked down to her left and saw her eldest daughter plodding along beside her. The 9 year old looked just as bad as Riss felt, and yet again, she felt guilty for letting them get into this situation. If they had've all just stayed back in Australia and not come on this harebrained trip to escape from the real world, they might not be in this position now. Her musings were quite common on this exhausting walk though, and Riss knew deep inside herself that she had to blaming herself for this, otherwise she would just give up here and now.

"Ok, rest time again folks." Roger spoke with as much authority as he could muster up. He had been leading this group of people halfway across Kansas for nearly 9 weeks now, and he knew that in these last few days frequent resting was the only thing that was keeping everyone going. Since they had hit the last town about 4 days ago they had finished the water that they had found in the corner milk bar there, the last of it being given to the three children that were with them, the youngest one of these cuddled up against his chest, the boy's breath coming in wheezy little intervals.

Riss sighed and found her legs just giving way from underneath her. Emily curled up in her mother's lap in the catatonic state that she had been in for the last 24 hours and Riss hugged her close, wishing that they were somewhere that she could just sleep. Rest had been a very rare thing over the last 8 weeks or so. Every time she closed her eyes, even though she knew that she needed the rest, all Riss could see was that huge mushroom cloud rising up from the horizon, so easily noticeable even from their high altitude on the plane.

Riss sat there, the tears and fears for her friends who were all over the USA rising once again. She had used the internet to meet new people for the better part of the last 10 years and the friends that she had made were true ones. Always Riss had dreamed of making this trip over to the places that they lived, to see them, meet with them and to cement the friendships that were formed so strongly in emails and forum posts.

Now her stomach dropped again just thinking of her other best friend Misty that she had left safe and sound in St Louis so many weeks ago, with her husband and kids. The tears rose unbidden in the back of her eyes, and yet again her throat choked up at the thought that she might never see Misty again. The news that they had heard from the other refugees at the Nebraska camp wasn't good for Misty and her family. They reported that as far as they knew St Louis had been one of the cities wiped out by the nuclear explosions that had gone off all over the USA.

Riss took a deep shaky breath. Almost immediately after that she felt Roger moving closer to her. He knew how emotional she could be by now, after weeks of travel with her, and if the truth be known he was more than accepting of her emotional instability. Which was a huge ask of anyone in her book. Previously people had not quite been as accepting, and it wasn't something Riss forgot in a hurry.

"Heya girl, gotta keep your spirits up ya know." Roger slung a comforting arm over Riss's shoulders and squeezed reassuringly. He balanced her son on his chest and reached over to her chin with his other hand, raising her face up to meet his gaze.

"We are going to be in Jericho soon, it won't be long. "

Riss looked up at him through the few tears that had escaped her eyes. She knew Roger's fiancé was in Jericho, and the way he made it sound, it was like heaven just thinking about it. She noticed the half smile on Roger's face, seemed like now days the only smiles he gave were ones to try and keep her spirits up. And for that she would be eternally grateful.

Another 10 minutes passed and finally the group started back to their feet again and milled around waiting to start back on the eternally continuing journey towards what they hoped would be their salvation and survival. Jessica Williams came up towards the front of the group with her arms outstretched towards Riss.

"Hey honey, just came to check out how you and the kids were doing. Can I have a look at Emily?" Jessica didn't wait for a reply; she just took Emily from her arms as if she could sense that Riss didn't have the energy anymore to hand her over to anyone.

Checking her pulse and her temperature and finding it stable, Jessica handed Emily back and then moved on to check Dominic where he was still resting against Roger. She wasn't happy with Dominic's temperature. It had slowly risen for the last 24 hours and was getting higher much faster than she would like.

She checked her namesake Jessica out quickly in between, liking the fact that the little girl was looking like she was coping fairly well with the conditions she was under.

Pulling Roger aside she spoke quietly to him, not wanting Riss to hear them.

"Roger, how much longer do you think we have before we get to Jericho? I'm not too happy about the way Emily is looking, and Dominic has quite the wheeze going in his chest, and his temperature is still going up. I don't want to risk losing him before we get there." Jessica looked over at Roger with a worried look on her face waiting for a response.

He thought for a minute before answering her.

"Well judging by what I remember of this road, there is a sign maybe 2 miles away that is the outskirts of Jericho. As soon as we get to that we only have a little way to go, and we will be in the town centre."

Roger stopped and thought about what he had just said. In his head he was picturing the town of Jericho, and seeing Emily there waiting for him. Roger had missed her so much over these last weeks, and it didn't matter how busy he was trying to survive, the thought of Em and her welcoming smile always sent him into a daydream. But in all this, he had to wonder whether the town was still there. All the rumors and the refugees he had spoken to said it was, but who knew if they were right.

This time it was Jessica that snapped him out of the daydream.

"Roger!" Jessica had spoken for the fourth time to him; she had to raise her voice as much as she could to get his attention.

Jessica spoke again now she was sure he was listening.

"I said ok then, we should get moving. I need to get these kids some food and some water, not to mention the rest of us." Jessica hugged Riss and moved back to the end of the long line of people milling around, where she was walking with some of the older men and women.

They had already lost three elderly people on this hellish walk halfway across the state. One was a great grandmother of 3 that was headed to Wichita to see her relatives for a wedding, one was an older man that had a heart attack, or so Jessica suspected by the pain he had suffered in his side before he passed, and the third one was a single lady in her late 70s who had travelled the world for the whole of her life, heard about Wichita and decided to settle down there with her pen friend she had met years ago.

Jessica mused over all of this as she went to the back of the line and they started moving again. She knew more about these people in 8 weeks than some people knew about their friends in a whole lifetime. It was important to share things to keep everyone going along the way while they were walking through what she imagined a warzone would look like.

There had been road gangs along the way, that was how the last lady had died, shot by a single bullet from a couple of scruffy looking teenagers who had run off after Riss had stabbed one of them in the back of the neck with the pocket knife she had picked up along the way.

Jessica still applauded her for her guts in doing that, but in other ways she wished Riss wasn't so foolhardy. She had yelled to Riss to stop when she had crept silently up on the teen as he stood over the dying old lady laughing and going through her pockets, but Riss was on him too quick for her to stop her in time.

The boy had fled with a huge wound in the back of his neck, complaining about women being such bitches. Jessica allowed herself a slight laugh at the way the two cowardly boys had fled after realizing that a group of their size wasn't just going to let them walk away without harm.

As far as she knew Riss still had the knife in her jeans pocket, and for that at the moment she was grateful.

The other road gangs they had met along the way were more interested in the cars they were pillaging and the dead bodies they were ripping the clothes off, than a rag tag bunch of what looked like convicts walking across the countryside.

Jessica shook herself from her thoughts just in time to see the sign Roger had promised coming up on their left hand side. She breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that they might, just might survive this nightmare yet.

Riss and Roger exchanged glances and a tiny hopeful smile as the chatter in the exhausted group grew louder and louder. It was the most that this mismatched group had talked since they first started walking somewhere on the other side of the state border.

Riss leaned over to Dominic still resting in Rogers arms and kissed him softly on the cheek.

"Hang in there little man, mummy is still here. Not long now, we might just make it."

With renewed hope, still shuffling one foot in front of the other, her and Roger kept a slow lead going on the band of people that they led towards the one hope that they had left.

To Be Continued.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Timeline : 200x1129 Bombs 60

Warnings : Mild language and imagery.

Summary: At the moment I'm not sure how long this is going to go for or really what is going to happen. All I know is that I didn't want to tempt fate by either doing an H/J story or God forbid an E/J one. So I decided to bring in a totally different character, who will meet Jake and who knows what will happen… I do know that I'm paying Emily back for her disregard of Roger in this though! But that's just me; I'm an evil girl ;)

This is Alternate Universe with Alternate Characters, although I might touch on the canon version sometimes just to ground myself with the time line. I'm terrible at forgetting what I write!

Feedback : Yes please! The more the better!

Chapter 2

The rag tag group stumbled into Jericho one or two at a time. The group had tried to stay together for the last leg of the walk, but it was the promising thought of rest, food and water that had spurred some to stumble along faster than others.

Roger, Riss and Jessica were now walking in the middle of the crowd with the children when they came across the town square. Some of the townspeople had already run outside to help with the front of the crowd, and people were slowly being taken indoors.

Riss could feel her feet slowly giving up on her as she measured steps under her breath.

"One…Two…Three…" The counting went on, until she reached the well lit area outside of Baileys Tavern.

Beside her she felt Roger stop dead and Riss looked over at him to see what was going on. She saw him just staring at an extremely attractive blonde girl who was staring straight back at him like she had seen a ghost.

The blond girl was standing with a group of other people who looked as shocked as she did. Slowly but surely Roger started walking again and increased his pace until he was standing in front of the blond girl. Riss could only imagine from the photo he had shown her and from his descriptions along the way that this was Emily, his fiancée.

Riss just stood there, unsure of what to do or say, until she collapsed in a heap on the ground. She could hear Jessica's voice beside her calling for help, but it didn't really register. All she knew was that they had reached Jericho, the kids were with her, and Roger had found his fiancée. That's all that mattered.

Gail Green saw the girl carrying the skinny youngster collapse on the ground, and heard the cries of the girl standing next to her fallen friend calling for help. She didn't waste a minute in getting over there, bending down to check her pulse and handing the young girl in her arms off to the girl standing there.

"Eric…Eric!" Gail's call became a little more frantic as she called for her youngest son to come help her.

He ran up to them, knowing that these people needed help, water and food and they needed it now. This wasn't something that could wait.

"Eric, we need to get her to the hospital now. April needs to look at her. And we need to get these children some help too." Gail noticed the older girl standing at the side of her mother in a trance-like state.

"Honey, what's your name?" Gail didn't try more than one question at once; she knew that if she had, the girl probably would have been overloaded.

"My name is Jessica, can you help mummy? Her name is Narissa. Please help her!" The little girl gave Gail a pleading look; something Gail had seen in her own children's eyes when they really needed her help with something urgent.

"Of course sweetie, of course we can." Gail fought back the tears at the haunted look in this little girl's eyes and the downtrodden look of all these people. God knows how long they had been walking to get to Jericho.

Gail thought she had seen Roger in this crowd too, and looked around, then finally found him standing wrapped up with Emily and a little boy in his arms that she had seen him come in with. She noticed something straight away though, and it brought a slight frown to her forehead. Jake was walking one of the other refugee men towards the clinic, but his eyes were fixated on Emily and Roger.

She just shook her head at the scene; there would be time to talk to Jake later about the things she had seen going on with him and Emily lately. All she knew that Emily wasn't good for him, that was the way it was before he went away for all those years, and it was the same now he was back as far as Gail was concerned. Besides she had a fiancé, who had come back to her now, and God help her if she wasn't thankful for that after all the people who had lost loved ones.

Gail got up off her knees from beside the girl she now knew as Narissa and grabbed Jessica's little hand. Leading the way with Eric scooping Narissa up and following, she took the little parade to the clinic. Even though it was still packed in there with all the people getting help, Gail knew just where she could find a room.

Over the other side of the street Roger was talking to Emily. More to the point Roger was being hugged by Emily so tightly he didn't think he could breathe.

"Em, I'm so glad to see you! I thought we were never going to get here!" He just stood back and looked at her. Apart from a few worry lines over her face she looked near perfect to him. He hadn't seen her for so long that the sight was like heaven to him.

"Oh Roger, I thought you weren't coming back!" Emily threw herself into his arms again and only then noticed the little toddler he was carrying.

A little suspiciously she looked at him.

"Whose toddler is that?" Emily looked at him expectantly, wanting him to answer her. He had just opened his mouth to speak when Jessica walked over to them.

"Roger! They have taken Riss off to the clinic here in town; I'll take Dominic off your hands now so you can get reacquainted with your fiancée." Jessica winked at him, gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and walked off with Dominic in her arms. Even she was feeling the pressure of walking for so long, but she wanted to get Dom taken care of before she could find rest herself.

Roger was glad they had Riss at the clinic and made a mental note to go and visit her later. He had a chuckle to himself as he thought 'Yeah, when I can walk by myself that is.'

Emily just raised her eyebrows at Roger and supported his weight as they walked slowly to the medical clinic. There would be time for questions later she thought. Right now she was just glad to have him back.

Riss woke up a few hours later; she could tell it was nowhere near dawn by the lack of light in the room. She took stock of herself, and then realized she was lying in a hospital bed. Looking down at her hand she saw an IV needle sticking out of it. 'Where the hell am I?' She thought long and hard for a moment and then as she moved her feet and legs the pain in them brought her back to the present with a hard yank.

She remembered coming into Jericho and then she remembered collapsing. Her next thought was for the kids. Riss shot bolt upright from laying down in one step and nearly fell off the bed with the dizziness that assailed her.

"Hey, take it easy honey." Gail rose up from the chair where she had been sitting in the corner of the darkened room. Riss hadn't noticed her there when she first woke up, and the effect of being spoken to out of the darkness caused a little scream to emit from her throat.

Gail rushed over to her. "Hey, it's ok…" She soothingly patted Riss's shoulder underneath the hospital issue gown. She was surprised at how thin the girl was, but then she couldn't expect much else after her walking for 8 weeks across Kansas.

"You are here at the clinic in Jericho sweetie. My name is Gail Green. I'm the mayor's wife; it was one of my sons, Eric and I that brought you in here when you collapsed on the street."

Riss just looked at her with a confused look on her face, which slowly gave way to a panicked one as she realized her babies weren't in the room with her.

"Where are my children? I came in with my son and two daughters. Mrs Green, please tell me where they are!" The look on Rissa's face developed into a horrified, haunted look that Gail hadn't seen on anyone's face for a long time.

"They are in the children's ward honey, they are fine. We are keeping the girls under observation and they have a drip on your little boy putting fluids and antibiotics into him at the moment. He is fine though; just a little overheated and dehydrated." Gail hoped that would pacify her for the moment, she knew that Narissa needed rest more than anything else to be there for her children when the time came.

Riss wasn't happy though, she needed to see her children. She started to swing her legs over the side of the bed and Gail protested at her moving.

"No, please, don't get out of bed. You need rest. I can assure you that your children are being looked after the best that we can. Your friend Jessica is up there sleeping in the same room as them if that helps you to feel better…" Gail was worried that Riss would get out of bed anyway. She didn't need to be up; in fact Gail couldn't guarantee that she would even be able to stand up on her own anyway.

Just as Riss was struggling to get out of bed, Jake came into the room.

"Mum… You know…" He started to say something but noticed Gail struggling to keep Riss in bed, and his words trailed off.

He rushed over to add his presence to his mothers and hopefully stop whatever was going on.

Putting his hands on Riss's shoulders he pushed her gently back on the bed. He could see that she was really upset and determined about something, but until he found out what it was, he wasn't taking any chances.

Riss was partly shocked and partly calmed by his sudden presence. She obediently lay back in the bed; there really wasn't much she could do with two people to hold her down. Riss had hoped that she could convince Gail to let her go to the children's ward and look at the kids, but something told her she should wait until this man had spoken to her first.

"Hey there." Jake spoke in a gentle voice to the girl, not wanting to scare her any further if that was what the matter with her was. "How are you doin'?

Riss was a little dumbstruck for a moment. Then she suddenly returned to her senses and spoke in a dull voice to Jake.

"Please I just want to see my kids. I want to know they are ok. I haven't been parted from them in so long." The tears started to appear in her eyes, and to her surprise she saw an answering sympathy in the man's eyes as he looked down at her.

"I'm Jake, Gail here is my mom and I can totally assure you that the kids are doing fine. You need to rest though, it's important you do, after what you have been through." He gave her a small what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but it turned out to be more a tilt of one side of his mouth.

"I'm Rissa. I don't…You don't… "She started to cry in earnest to her embarrassment.

'Both of them will think I'm nuts' Riss thought to herself... Pulling herself together was a major achievement especially with the two sets of eyes, one set blue like her own, and the other set dark brown.

'His eyes are nearly black.' She thought to herself and then shook herself mentally at her frivolous thoughts as she struggled for breath in between her sobs. Riss could feel the empathy in both the gaze of Gail and Jake as her words started to fall out on top of themselves.

"I…. What…." Riss started to speak again and even as she did, found it too hard to try to get the words out. Jake gently grabbed her hand and held it for reassurance.

Riss took a deep breath before she started to speak. "What I saw out there, what we had to do to survive, and the people we lost. All this makes it all the more important that my kids are ok. I know it seemed like nothing to everyone before the bombs went off, because life was simple then, but love and family now are the two most important things to me at the moment. And if they aren't to everyone else too, then they should be. I just want you to know where I'm coming from and why I really want to see my kids." Another deep breath was needed after all that. And she wasn't sure if it had come out sounding too hard, as she saw tears rising in Gail's eyes.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry… I didn't mean for that to come out sounding like that, it's just that… I'm in a strange place with people I don't know, and I feel a little off kilter." Riss spoke again in a hurried voice hoping that she hadn't offended anyone.

Gail came back over towards her side and smoothed her hair back from her forehead. Somehow just the simple gesture served to make Riss feel more at peace. It was like Gail's touch was the mother's touch that she had never known herself, and that she was determined her kids would have forever.

"It's really ok, I understand. I know what it's like out there. I know what it's like to send my boys out to scout the roads wondering if they will ever come back again…" Gail stopped and Riss watched as her and Jake shared a meaningful look…

"All I ask is that you trust us, put a little trust in the fact that I know what it's like to have a mother's love towards her children , and I will try and do the best I can to help you…" Riss and Gail just looked at each other and a silent understanding was struck then and there. Neither of them knew how much it would mean in the future though, but for the moment and for Riss it was reassurance enough for her.

Settling back in the bed, with her qualms at rest for just a little while, Riss realized how tired she really was. Gail took a look at Jake and motioned him outside as Riss fell asleep again, lulled into a sense of safety for the first time in weeks.

Gail and Jake stood outside the hospital room door. She was trying not to show her worry about this young mother above all the rest of the other refugees that had came in that night.

"Jake, I think we need to do something here. I know her friend Jessica is over with the children in the ward there, so really we have to make sure she doesn't try to get out of bed again and go to visit them without help. I don't want her to be alone either when she wakes again, so I think we need to do something about sitting with her. I know April doesn't have time for that stuff, and I guess until Bonnie and a few of the other volunteers come in tomorrow it's you and I that have to do it." Gail looked closely at Jake, monitoring his reaction. She knew he was a good man, who would do his best for anyone, but she also knew that he might not have any interest in sitting with a refugee that was going to put added strain on the town's supplies.

"Hey mom, that's ok. You take the first shift and I will come in about 3 or 4am and take the next one. Just try to get some sleep ok? I don't want you wearing yourself out." Jake pressed a kiss to the top of his moms head, casting his eyes back to the slight figure sleeping in the bed in the dark hospital room. Somehow he didn't mind the idea of sitting with her and chasing away some of the demons as much as he thought he would.

Watching his mother go back into the room with Narissa he exited the corridor into the brisk night outside to head to Baileys where the rest of the refugees were being looked at. He knew he would find his dad there, and probably Eric too, sorting out the rest of them. They all needed places to stay, food, water and other supplies, and he had a moment of panic worrying about where it was all going to come from.

Jake shook himself mentally before he entered Baileys and reminded himself not to jump the gun on worrying about these things. One thing at a time…

To be continued.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Warnings : some bad language i think,and maybe a little violence.

Feedback : Because of the low feedback rate everywhere at the moment this is the last update i will do for a while unless i get a lot of feedback. Im trying to keep this up on more than one site, and its becoming tiresome.

Summary: Jake gets aquainted with a toddler, and Roger has some thoughts about what happens on the road. Riss talks with Jake for the first time.

This is Alternate Universe with Alternate Characters, although I might touch on the canon version sometimes just to ground myself with the time line. I'm terrible at forgetting what I write!

Chapter 3

It was silent outside; the moon was shining down on the patrols that were driving around the outskirts of Jericho, keeping guard on their little refuge and the sky was clear as glass.

In the middle of town the lights were all out, the refugees that didn't need medical attention had been taken to the Church Hall for the night, as that was the only place in town that had enough room for all of them to sleep.

The quiet inside the clinic was so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The only sounds were the sicker people moaning slightly and the snores of the ones who could sleep enjoying their rest.

Dr Kenchy Duwhalia was the doctor on duty, sitting behind his makeshift desk, sorting patient records out. He had sent April Green home for a few hours sleep, Kenchy was awake at this time of night normally, and he knew with her pregnancy that April needed rest more than anything.

In the children's ward Jessica woke up with a start, finding herself listening for the regular breathing patterns of the three small children in the room with her. She slowly opened her eyes completely, becoming used to the moonlight that illuminated the room.

Looking over where Dominic should have been asleep in the port-a-cot in the corner, she saw a dark shape sitting in the chair near his bed. Jessica shot bolt upright, scared as hell and prepared to run out of the room to get whoever she could to help. The voice coming out of the darkness wasn't at all what she expected.

"Hey, hey, calm down, it's only me." Jake spoke to Jessica in a quiet whisper.

"What are you doing in here? " She whispered back doubtfully, surprised and a little wary at him being in the room with her and the kids.

Walking a tad closer to him so as not to wake the kids while they were talking, she looked in Dom's bed and was shocked to see him not there. Jessica looked over at Jake, and she saw that he had the little blanket wrapped bundle of a boy lying on his chest, with his head resting just above Jake's heart.

"How come you have got Dom? I didn't hear him wake up." She whispered, rubbing her eyes and still trying to clear her sleep- fogged mind enough to work out just what was happening.

Dom stirred a little and whimpered slightly in his sleep. Jake absentmindedly rubbed his back and smoothed the slightly too long fringe back off the little boys forehead.

"He was crying and Kenchy came in to check on him, you must have been asleep too soundly to hear him. I was walking around the corridors checking on people, waiting to take over from my mum in Riss's room, and I heard Kenchy trying to get him back to sleep." Jake gave a slight chuckle, remembering Kenchy's frustration when the boy wouldn't settle for him. "He wasn't having much luck. I came in here and Kenchy handed him off to me."

Jessica was trying to digest this information. Earlier in the night when she had met Jake Green, she had physically run into him after he had been having a heated argument with Emily in the corridor of the clinic. She hadn't pegged him for the type to be sitting with Riss, let alone the sort of person who would hold a toddler in the middle of the night just so the boy could go back to sleep.

Not after the way that he and Emily had been trading questionable-sounding insults in the halls of the clinic earlier...

Jessica reached over and laid her hand on Dominic's forehead. He felt cool to the touch, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Jake looked at her questioningly.

"He was running a temp when he came in earlier in the night, that and he was dehydrated. Did Kenchy take his IV out?" Jessica gave a brief explanation of her sigh.

"Yeah, he did that when the little man here woke up. He didn't say anything to me about why though." Jake wasn't surprised Kenchy hadn't elaborated on his actions. It wasn't something people expected him to be interested in, or to know much about. But it was surprising how much he had learnt from his mom being a nurse over the years.

Jake slowly stood up, cradling Dom's head in his large hand, and laid him back in the cot. The toddler moved around a little restlessly until Jake tucked the blankets around him, and rubbed his back. Then he settled back into sleep again peacefully.

Jake suddenly felt a bit self conscious at being caught doing something like this.

"Hey, look, I got to go check on mom and Riss. I promised I would take over around 4 and it's about 3.30 now. The little man should be right now, I think he just needed some cuddles." Jake shot a slightly longing look in the direction of Dom's cot and then started to walk out of the room.

"Hey?" Jessica stopped him with one word.

"Yeah?" Jake stopped and looked at her.

"His name is Dominic, by the way and thanks for doing this. I guess I was exhausted from everything." She sighed a little and shifted her weight to the other foot. The muscles in her legs were still giving her hell.

"Ahh. Dominic… That suits him…" Jake sounded thoughtful… "You're welcome anyway. Try to get some more rest." He gave her a small smile, backed out the door and went in the direction of Riss's room to find his mom.

Over at the Pines, Emily and Roger were laying in bed talking. Roger had been asleep for a few hours, but he woke up in a cold sweat and couldn't drop back off again. Emily had woken when he got up to get a drink of water and visit the bathroom.

"Hey honey, you ok?" She had queried him as he came back into bed.

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking about all the stuff that has gone on since the bombs went off…." Roger's voice trailed off into the darkness.

"Want to tell me about it? What did you see out there anyway?" Emily lifted herself up on one elbow next to him, a curious look on her face.

Roger sighed. He didn't really know what to say, let alone whether he could voice the horrors that he had seen and experienced out there on the roads leading to Jericho. He thought of Riss, lying in the clinic with her kids. He was just so glad they had all made it back here to Jericho.

Riss and he had hit it off so quickly when they started walking, and somehow he had become unofficial leader of the group. Maybe it was because he decided that they were going to Jericho. But mostly he remembered how Riss was there backing him up and supporting him all the way, and helping him decide what to do when the going was tough.

Roger also remembered the day; about a week's walk out of Jericho where the two boys with guns had came out of the ditch beside the road. They had been hiding behind a car that was lying on its side, the roof and doors half ripped off.

The boys had come out at them so quickly, and had attacked the back of the group. The one woman that was straggling to keep up had been the one they picked on first. They shot her in the side and when she collapsed in pain, they started boldly going through her pockets to see what they could find right in front of the rest of the group who had already started walking back towards them.

Roger had opened his mouth to yell and started jogging towards the boys, intending to get rid of them and save their victim, but as he was getting there he saw a streak of black hoodie and blond hair running past him frantically brandishing a knife.

"Hey! Get the hell away from her!" Riss had shouted as she closed the distance between her and the boys. Roger had sped up a little trying to stop her, but she was already on the back of the biggest boy, stabbing him in the back of the neck in a blind rage with the knife they had picked up from a backpack about 2 days back just laying on the road.

By the time Roger had caught up to them, the boys had fled, yelling insults about 'crazy bitches with knives' back over their shoulders. He remembered getting to Riss just as she was holding the woman in her lap, sitting on the tarred road, the woman's blood seeping through her small hands as she tried to stop the flow in vain.

It had been too late though. The woman was dead in two more breaths, and he just sat there holding Riss in his arms, wishing things were different. They buried the corpse under a pile of rocks they found in a field and said a quick prayer, then started back on their walk.

Riss had been somewhat withdrawn since that day; Roger could feel her retreating inside herself. He tried to talk to her, wanting her to open up, but the only people she would speak more than two words to were her kids. Apart from when they came close to Jericho and she nearly stumbled and fell. That was the only sentence that he had heard directed towards him.

Roger didn't kid himself about this. He cared about her, that was a given. He cared about all the refugees. You didn't walk with people for two months without getting to know them, probably better than some of your own friends.

He broke himself out of his reverie to Emily shaking him lightly, obviously still waiting for an answer to her question. He just couldn't put it into words though. It wasn't the right time.

"Roger! You ok?" There was a slight overtone of annoyance in her voice. He sighed, knowing how much she loved attention. Roger wished that she could be a little happier just for the fact that he was home and not want to talk about what he had seen so soon.

"Yeah Em, I'm ok. I guess I just got lost in my thoughts for a little while." He tightened his arms around Emily and pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

"Come on, we should get some more sleep. I want to check in on all the others in the morning." Roger felt Emily tense slightly at this change in subject and the unspoken avoidance of her question, but it was too late to worry about offending her, his eyes were already closing in sleep again.

Little did he know Emily stayed awake for another hour after that, watching him sleep and still wondering about the toddler he had carried into Jericho.

Back at the clinic Jake had gone into Riss's room to wake his mom up and take over the shift. He sent his mom home to sleep with admonishments not to worry about anything. She cuddled him briefly, gave him a peck on the cheek and then left for home.

Jake settled down in a chair beside the bed, laid back and closed his eyes. He could hear Riss's soft, rhythmic breathing, and the sound lulled him into a doze.

A while later he woke to hear a noise next to him that sounded suspiciously like Riss getting out of the bed. He reached over and grabbed her wrist before she could get out.

"Hey! Where the hell do you think you're going?" Jake spoke in a slightly sharper tone than he had intended and felt Riss flinch underneath his grasp.

Riss shot a death glare at him. If it wasn't bad enough that he scared her half to death, now he wouldn't leave her alone to even go to the bathroom.

"Well… For your information, I…" And she pointed to herself with one finger to emphasize her point "Was just going to the bathroom. So do you think you could let go of my arm for 5 minutes so I can take care of it?" She gave him a stare that was patented to make even the biggest bully back down.

Jake chuckled under his breath at the blue-grey eyes trying to look menacing. Reluctantly, he let go of her wrist and held his hands up in surrender with a lopsided grin on his face.

"Hey, no arguments here, I was just hoping you weren't trying to sneak out of the room to go to the children's ward again. I just didn't want to find you collapsed in a corridor somewhere." His tone took on a more serious note as he regarded Riss standing there with her arms crossed defiantly over her chest.

She just harrumphed her disapproval at him and slowly headed off into the bathroom that was adjacent to the door of the small room that she was in. Jake looked in exasperation at her, marveling at the fact that this was the same woman who couldn't even walk up the street 6 hours beforehand and that now she had enough energy to argue with him about going to the bathroom.

Returning out of the bathroom, and painfully but surely getting back to the bed Riss sat down and took a deep breath.

Jake spoke first, his voice quiet.

"You have your kids in the children's ward, right?" He was pissed off with himself for not realizing before and putting two and two together about whose toddler Dominic was.

Riss hesitated before answering him…

"Yeah, that's me. Why? Is there something wrong?" She started to get a little panicky at the implied reference to the children, wondering if he knew something that she didn't.

"No no nothing's wrong." Jake rushed to assure her of that. "Just wanted to let you know that they are sleeping peacefully that's all. I was talking to Jessica in there just before I came around here, and she told me that Dominic's temp is down and he is rehydrated." Jake decided not to tell her about getting Dom off to sleep again for Kenchy. He wasn't sure whether Riss would appreciate it with him being a stranger cuddling her child like that. He saw no good reason to worry her with it now.

He saw Riss's shoulders heave as she gave a great huge sigh.

"Thank you. You… You don't know how worried I was about him. He isn't used to being away from me for very long, and I could tell he was getting sicker on the way here. How are the girls?" She asked with a hopeful tone in her voice.

Jake mentally kicked himself for not telling her they were fine too.

"They are good. They are both sleeping peacefully as well. I think the fact that they have full tummies makes a lot of difference." Jake gave Riss a sideways look. She was still looking at him, but he could swear she looked more peaceful now. The dullness that he saw in her eyes before was nearly gone, and there was a spark there in its place that was good to see.

"Thank you. That means a lot to me, knowing that they are all ok. I just hope that I can get in there to see them tomorrow. I don't like being away from them." Riss nervously twisted the blanket in her hands, momentarily avoiding Jake's steady gaze on her, feeling a little self conscious.

"Ok, now you know that, lie back down, and try and get some more sleep." Jake shot a look at the watch on his wrist. It had been in a cement safe out at the barn when the EMP's went off, and for some reason, probably because of the cement surrounding it, and the few other electrical odds and ends in the bomb shelter out there, it still worked.

"It's only 4.45am. If you drop back off now, you can get a bit more rest until mom comes back in the morning with breakfast." Jake remembered the days when the kitchen at the clinic worked overtime to serve three meals a day plus snacks to the 100 odd people that it catered for. The bustle and hustle when he had been here 5 years ago was gone now though, nothing remained in the kitchen but the useless equipment that was damaged by the EMP's.

Riss lay back down in the bed, pulling the blankets up to her neck. She was shivering a bit in the hospital gown that she had on, and the room temperature was chilly, as it always was at this time of morning.

Jake noticed her shivering and looked around for something else to put over her. Finding nothing else he took his jacket off and laid it over the top of her blankets.

"Hey, I can't take that, put it back on." Riss was shocked. She couldn't let him freeze in the low temperatures of the room.

"Nah, it's ok. I've been in colder places than this before to sleep. Besides, I sleep warm anyway." Jake held the jacket over her when she would have handed it back to him, and was relieved when she stopped trying to give it back to him and settled down underneath it.

"Thank you." Riss looked at him, already feeling sleepy. She snuggled down underneath it, and was surprised at the calming effect that the scent of him still lingering on his jacket was having on her senses.

"Just get some sleep." Jake answered her one last time before he pulled the chair back up to the side of the bed and stretched his tall body out putting his arms behind his head. He looked over at her before he closed his eyes, and allowed himself one small grin at the tiny snores that were already emitting from the shape underneath the bedclothes. For a moment, just one moment, before he fell asleep he thought to himself how good it felt to have someone to look after.

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Warnings: Some bad language and a little strong imagery.

Timeline: 200X1129 (Bombs 60)

Feedback : Please! I love it, the more detailed the better so i can work out what parts to kick in the head and what parts to keep

Summary:  Riss is reunited with her kids and other things.

**Chapter 4**

Morning broke in the town of Jericho to reveal the clouds breaking up and moving away, showing a bright blue sky underneath.

Over at the Green house everyone had been up and moving around for hours. April was putting the finishing touches on her hair in the bathroom and Eric was making his way downstairs to get some coffee before he headed off to Town Hall. Johnston was already there, he had left early this morning after talking with Gail at length, to try and sort out some more proposals for the refugees before they had to deal with Gray, who was the proverbial thorn in their side, later on in the day.

Eric walked into the kitchen where Gail was putting food on a plate and loading things into a basket.

"Good Morning mom."

Gail turned around, saw her son and gave him a warm smile.

"Hey Eric... Sleep well honey?" She looked at him, noting the dark circles under his eyes, and silently thinking that she should be pushing both him and Johnston to get more sleep. As well as Jake.

_'Not that any of the three of them would l__isten to me__ for a second.'_ Gail thought with a chuckle to herself.

"Yeah, I didn't sleep too badly. Where are you off to with food so early in the morning? Where's Jake? We need him at town hall today to help us deal with Gray." Eric so wasn't looking forwards to that particular battle. He sighed in resignation at the fact that Gray seemed to fight them over what was good for the town, no matter what the right thing to do was.

Gail laughed at her son, the questions falling out one after the other, reminding her of when he used to do the same as a child.

"One question at a time, Eric…" She regarded him with a smile. "I'm off to the clinic to take breakfast to the girl that we took there last night and her kids. As for Jake, I left him sitting with her in the early hours of this morning." Gail took the look of surprise on Eric's face in her stride.

"Huh?" Eric was mildly shocked to say the least. It didn't seem like Jake to do that sort of thing.

"We had to do something. Riss was very restless and upset about her kids last night, and of course being the middle of the night there were no volunteers in until this morning. Jake and I decided to split the night between us." Gail spoke matter of factly.

"Oh well, just make sure he gets into town hall this morning as soon as you can spare him." Eric chuckled. "We need him for backup."

Gail made a face at the thought of anyone dealing with Gray; it wasn't high on her list of priorities at any time.

"Ok mom, I'm off." Eric drained the last of his cup of coffee and put the cup in the sink. He gave his mom a quick kiss on the head as he grabbed his jacket and headed off out the door.

"See you later!" Gail finished putting the food in the basket and went to tell April that she was leaving for the clinic.

At town hall Eric arrived in the mayor's office to the familiar sound of Johnston Green and Gray Anderson arguing over what should be done about the refugees. Somehow even though he wasn't expecting to have to deal with Gray this early in the morning, he wasn't surprised that he was already in there arguing with his dad.

"We can't just turn them out on the street Gray! What are you expecting us to do? Send them off on the migration trail like they never arrived here? What about the girl and her three children that are in the clinic at the moment? Could you condemn those innocent children to die?" Johnston was more worked up with Gray than he had been over anything in a long while.

"What do you suggest we do? We have barely enough supplies to feed ourselves over the winter let alone another 50 people. I agree with the sentiment you are expressing here, but seriously, are you going to let our children and grandchildren starve just so someone else's child can live?" Gray looked incredulously at Johnston.

They both stopped and stared at Eric like he had come from another planet and he felt a little uneasy at the looks that both were giving him.

Gray started first. "Eric, talk some sense into this father of yours. I don't see why he can't see what a hard position this town is in already and how the hell he plans to support these refugees!" The accompanying look with this directed towards Eric only made him surer that Gray expected him to go against his father and agree with the would-be mayor.

"Gray." Eric started hesitantly. "Honestly, did you actually look at any of these people? They could be our neighbors, the people we haven't seen since the bombs dropped. I would hope that whatever town our own people had stumbled into that they are treating them better than you obviously want to treat these people!" He finished talking and sat down in a chair, running a hand over his face, wondering exactly what Gray wanted of him.

Johnston just stood there, the emotion radiating off him in waves. Anger directed at Gray who was obviously expecting him to condemn these people to death, fear for the people he had known all his life, who weren't safe in the boundaries of Jericho at the moment and hope for a future for these poor people that had walked so far to get to food, shelter and water. All of this was running through his head at once, and Johnston knew that there was no way he could throw these people literally out into the cold.

"I'm sorry Gray, but despite the discussion, you know that as mayor of this town, my word is ultimately the final one. I cannot and will not let myself be swayed by you or anyone else that says we cannot take care of these people and our own at the same time. There are crops that will need to be harvested if we can get them planted, and farms that are going to need tending come springtime." Johnston paused to take a breath before he dropped the next piece of his speech onto Gray. "And I expect these refugees that have come in here to be able to help with that. I know they will be able to give something back to Jericho then, when we need them." Johnston shut his mouth with a determined stare at Gray, who looked like his brain was going to fry with all the work that it was doing.

Resisting the unexplainable urge he had to clap for his father after delivering that speech, Eric just sat there, waiting for Gray to deliver his next line of doom. But it seemed the subject was closed for the moment, as Gray backed out the door, and disappeared to his office on the other side of the corridor. Eric was sure that wasn't the last they had heard on the matter though, just the last they had heard for the moment.

Johnston sat in his chair and sighed. He wasn't feeling as good as he could be this morning, hadn't been for the last week or so if the truth be known, and he had a feeling that it had more to do with the constant challenging of his position by Gray Anderson that he dealt with on any given day, rather than a medical reason.

His voice took shape in the quiet of the office. "Tell me I'm doing the right thing Eric. Tell me that I am doing the right thing supporting these people as well as I would our own." Johnston suddenly stopped.

Then he started talking again.

"No, Eric, don't tell me. Actually, I'm damn sure I'm doing the right thing by these people. It's just Gray keeps on putting these stupid doubts in my head when I know very well that I shouldn't try to second guess myself." Johnston was aware he was basically talking to himself, that he couldn't expect Eric to answer something like this, but he needed to hear the words out loud to reassure himself if nothing else.

"You know what your mother has planned, son? " He looked at Eric expectantly.

"No dad, I have no idea, but knowing mom, it's something big and involves adopting something or someone." Eric allowed himself a small smile at this.

His dad and mom over the years had been adopting everything and everyone they found without a home or family. Mostly his mom though, his dad just seemed to go along with it. Including April, who he would never have gotten as close to as he had if it weren't for his mother insisting she meet the school bus outside their house every morning, to escape from waiting for it in front of her own house where her mostly-drugged mother didn't drag herself out of bed every morning till about 11am.

Eric was still glad for the turn of events that had allowed Gail to invite April to live with them when she was 16 and thinking about continuing on with school in spite of her mother's wishes that she just take a job at Gracie Leigh's supermarket so her mom could spend more money on drugs. He and April had been inseparable since then, and even when April was off finishing her doctors training in Rogue River one or the other of them used to drive the couple of hours each way just to be able to spend the night and days off together.

Shaking himself mentally Eric dragged himself back to the here and now and started actually listening to his father.

"Your mother got me up extra early to talk to me this morning. She has this idea that because we don't use the rooms underneath the house at the back that they could be turned into a temporary flat for the young woman that is at the medical clinic with her children at the moment. Of course I agreed, what else could I do?" Johnston looked a little concerned with the fact that he had given into his wife so easily once again, but his consternation broke into a grin when he thought about how excited Gail was at having the children living there.

Eric just laughed. "Sounds like mom! I was sure it would involve us taking someone in, somewhere along the line. Has she given you plans on how you should billet out the rest of the refugees yet? "

Eric laughed again at the thought that Gail probably had been running everything behind the scenes again. As usual, it was just something she did without thinking. Organizing people and helping them find homes was one of her happier pastimes. Gail often did it for animals too, and people had learnt to come to Gail if they wanted someone, or something, rehomed.

Johnston chuckled. "Yup, she has told me exactly how many people I need to put where, and who with. Seriously, I didn't think she had enough time to even figure out how many people arrived last night, let alone where they should be going when they are billeted out! The quickness of your mother never fails to amuse and amaze me son. I don't think I'm ever going to get used to it!" Johnston and Eric both dissolved into laughter at this comment.

Johnston continued suddenly sounding more serious. "But it all depends really on who wants to take in the refugees. Gail gave me a good idea of who would take some in, and who wouldn't, but we need to call a town meeting to decide and get votes from Jericho none the less." He groaned inwardly at the thought of mixing the community with Gray and giving him a chance to speak.

Eric voiced Johnston's concerns for him. "We really need to make sure that the town isn't swayed by Gray's point of view though, that could be disastrous to the end results."

Johnston nodded in agreement. "Some planning in is order I think."

Eric nodded and the two of them started fleshing out a plan to keep the community on their side.

Over at the clinic the patients that could move about were up and trying to complete morning routines without too much fuss. Riss was hobbling towards the bathroom at an extremely slow pace when a little voice came around the corner of the doorway attached to the barreling body of a toddler.

"Mummy! My mummy!"

Tears started to rise in Riss's eyes as she turned around to see her three angels at the door. Gail had managed to fit Jessica and Emaly into a wheelchair, and the little voice had come from Dominic, who had wriggled free of his sisters lap where she was holding him and ran to Riss who was already holding up her arms in welcome.

"Dommie! My baby boy. " Riss didn't bother to hide her tears after that. She hobbled over to the wheelchair in the doorway and was met by Gail pushing it into the middle of the room. Riss just reached out and grabbed the two girls, holding them close to her.

Gail and Jake shared a look which spoke volumes… Jake wasn't surprised at all that his mother had come to the room bearing the children this morning; he had either expected that to happen or for her to take Riss to them…

"Oh my goodness, my angel babies. Mummy missed you so so much." Riss bent down and sat on the floor with Dom crawling into the middle of her lap and the girls finding their way onto each knee.

"How are you both? Are you ok?" Riss asked Jessica and Emaly the question that she had wanted to ask them since she woke up the night before.

Jessica was the first to answer, and the only one, as she usually spoke for her sister anyway. "I'm fine mum, Em and I are both fine. Very sore though." Jessica's face screwed up for a moment as she shifted on her mother's lap. "But Dr Ken… Kenchy… was really nice to us and Jessica was helping him too. You know I like Jessica. She's so funny!"

Riss just looked at Gail in gratitude. "Thank you so much for bringing my babies to me. I missed them too much. " Her voice cracked as she spoke. "I'm not sure what I would do without them, most days they are the sunshine to me."

Gail just looked at Riss in silent understanding, knowing exactly what it cost her as a mother to watch her sons leave every day for their lives. How much it tore at her heart every time Jake drove away, not knowing if he would come back. Gail looked at Jake again, searching every line in his face, silently thanking God that he had been back near town when the bombs hit. Knowing how hard it would have been for her if he had've been anywhere but Jericho, Gail quite often sent up a silent prayer of thanks for letting her have her family close in this time when nothing was certain.

Jake stepped towards Riss.

"C'mon girl, let's get you up off that floor and onto the bed with these kiddies." He put one of Riss's arms around his shoulders and Jessica inserted herself under the other side of her mother's arms, knowing instinctively that she needed to help her mom to the bed.

Once the kids and Riss were settled on the hospital bed Gail turned to Jake.

"I'm supposed to tell you to go down to Town Hall Jake, your father and Eric are already down there. They wanted your help in dealing with Gray I believe. " Gail gave her son a look which he read as being that she wanted time with Riss too.

"Ok. I'm gonna leave you ladies to your bonding session." Jake looked at his mom and then Riss before he started to walk out of the room.

"Hold on. Jake?" Riss spoke, her voice still awash with the emotion that came from having her children safe in her arms.

Jake turned around to look at Riss expectantly.

"Thank you. For staying with me last night and trying to protect me from myself. "

Riss gave a wry laugh. "Even if I didn't need it."

"Don't worry about it. All part of the service." He gave her a slightly rakish smile, taking in the sight of her with the children once again, and headed out the door. He could hear Gail and Riss already talking as he shut the door behind him. Jake was just happy to hear her voice sounding so much more alive, so much happier. He tucked the memory away to keep him going through the day ahead and continued walking out the exit, heading to Town Hall.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Warnings: Nothing really

Timeline: 200X1130 (Bombs 61)

Feedback: Roger and Jess have a conversation and Emily sees them, what will she think? Gail asks Riss to move in with them..

A/N: First off, thanks to my wonderful beta ShadesOfGreen over at Jericho Fan Fiction for betaing this story for me. Secondly, i am so sorry about the late upload of these next few chapters. I am slack, i know, but real life got in the way, and TBH i still havent watched the last three episodes of Jericho. Seems to me, if i dont watch them, then it isnt really finished? Stupid i know.

Anyway, i have another three or four chapters finished that i will post when i can, and then i plan on reviewing where i am up to,and maybe continuing with the story. Thanks for reading!

Chapter 5

"I'm sorry about the job. I shouldn't have automatically thought you were willing to give up living here to move back to the city." Roger spoke quietly, sitting in the seat of the car that Emily had borrowed from one of the more fortunate of her neighbors.

He had wanted to go back into town this morning as soon as Emily was willing to take him to check on the others. They seemed like near family to him after being with them so long on the road and if the truth be known, he didn't feel entirely comfortable being away from them for the night. He felt somehow responsible for them, as if he should have been staying with them instead of being in relative luxury at his and Emily's house.

"I know Roger." Emily just looked at him sideways, keeping her eyes on the road. "I know I was a little unfair, not even hearing you out about it. It's just I had my heart set on living in Jericho when we got married and you knew that. Well at least I thought you did." Em sighed to herself, wondering how the hell she was supposed to manage living in the city when all she ever had wanted to do was settle down in Jericho.

Emily caught herself halfway through that sentence and corrected it. There was no city, not anymore. Well at least she didn't think Chicago was still there. She sighed again thinking how little they really did know about life outside of Jericho. And it didn't help that Roger wouldn't talk to her about what was out there.

Em looked sideways at him for what seemed like the thousandth time and wondered if this was the way he was going to be from now on. Closed off to her, worried about the others and not her. He just didn't seem like the Roger she knew anymore.

They drove the rest of the way into Jericho in silence. The slight peace that had been made between them was overshadowed by problems that were much bigger than either of them realized.

In the clinic Riss was sitting on the bed surrounded by the kids, and they had all just finished eating. She lay back on the bed and grunted slightly when Dominic insisted on sitting on her stomach.

"Thank you again Gail. I don't know what to say to all this kindness. It's more than any of us expected, coming into Jericho to be greeted with this. The most we expected was a bed on the floor, clean water and blankets. Despite the fact that Roger insisted there was so much more for us here." Riss looked in gratitude at Gail, who had a huge beaming smile on her face at the antics of the two girls building houses made out of playing cards on the over bed table.

"Honestly honey, I wouldn't have it any other way than to try and make you all happy. I know it was extremely hard for you on the way here and that you saw and had to do things that you would much rather forget. The same applies to all your friends. I know that we don't have much here in Jericho, but what we can share with all of you, we will. This brings me to my next subject." Gail paused for a moment before she started on the next question.

She didn't want Riss to refuse her offer. It wasn't just about giving her a place to live, it was about giving the house some life again, something it had been sorely lacking since the boys had grown up.

Gail remembered a time when there was all sorts of noise and laughter in the house. Kids running up and down the stairs, Stanley and Jake roughhousing as they always used to do. She had lost count of the times she had to break them apart before one or the other ended up in tears.

Eric and April as young ones were just as bad too. April used to follow Eric around like a lost puppy dog. Gail smiled at the memories that brought back to her.

There was the memory of the day when Eric finally decided to pay more attention to April for instance, and he bought her a little bouquet of flowers from the garden out the back. They weren't much, mostly weeds in fact, but they made April smile, and that was a feat in itself. Gail remembered how unhappy her upbringing had been before she started coming to their house, and she also remembered the first real smile April had given her and Johnston at Christmas.

It was the first Christmas they had experienced with April there, and they had bought her a couple of her favorite movies. Robin Hood Prince of Thieves was one of them and Gail remembered the huge grin, and the hugs April had bestowed upon her and Johnston when she opened her present.

Gail just hoped that somewhere in this mess she could provide just a little of that same happiness to Riss and her kids. She shook herself out of her thoughts to find Riss still looking at her with a strange look on her face.

"Gail, you ok?" Riss sounded more than a little bit worried. Gail had zoned out completely.

"Yes I'm fine. Just thinking about when my own kids were as little as these ones." Gail waved her arm towards Riss's children.

"I wanted to know whether you would consider coming and staying with us for a while at least…" Gail held her arm up to stop any protests that were already starting to spill from Riss's mouth.

"I have thought about this, and I discussed it with my husband Johnston before he left this morning for work. We think it could definitely work for all of us." Gail waited with baited breath for Riss to reply.

Instead Riss just burst into tears.

"Hey, hey, no need to cry sweetie! " Gail patted Riss on the shoulder, slightly understanding the buildup of emotions that were the cause of this outbreak, but a little shocked none the less.

Riss sniffled through the tissue that Gail handed her. "I'm sorry. Honestly, I didn't mean to burst into tears like that! You must think I'm really silly." Riss gave halfhearted chuckle at herself and her emotional outburst.

"No not at all. I just think you are overwhelmed that's all. It's a natural reaction, considering everything you have been through…" Gail stopped abruptly midsentence at the sight of Roger hobbling through the doorway.

Gail ran over to hug him. "Roger! It's so good to see you back here." She automatically looked around for Emily. "Where's Em? I thought she wouldn't have been able to let you out of her sight!"

Roger hugged Gail back enthusiastically. "Ah yeah." He cleared his throat. "Emily decided that she needed to check on some stuff at the high school. She apparently wants to get school back into session sooner rather than later."

Roger felt a small pair of arms go around his legs. "Wo…ger!" Doms little voice demanded attention. He had climbed off his mother's lap when he saw Roger come into the room.

Roger picked him up, inspecting Dom and kissing him soundly on the cheek. "Hey there mister! Up to mischief yet?"

"No!" Dom answered him resoundingly, wiggling to be let down already. "Dom good boy, not naughty." The look on his face that accompanied this statement could only be described as angelic.

Riss just shook her head at her toddler's antics and welcomed him back up onto the bed again. Gail and Roger burst out laughing in unison.

Roger moved on to Riss, leaning over her on the bed and hugging her briefly. "How are you going? Feeling a little better?"

"I'm much better thank you." Riss replied with a pleased smile on her face. "Thanks to Gail, her ministrations, and the fact that the kids are around me now." She looked over at her two girls, so engrossed in their card attempts that they hadn't even noticed Roger had walked into the room.

He walked over to them and dropped a kiss on the top of both their heads. They looked up at him, grinned and went back to playing their game. Roger inwardly smiled at how relaxed they looked sitting on the floor.

"Have you seen Jessica yet?" Riss asked with concern.

"Yeah, I saw her for a little while in the lounge down the hall. She was ordered by April to get off her feet and out from underneath April's for a while. Apparently she was trying to do way too much too soon."

Roger had already given Jessica a piece of his mind for that. He wryly thought that she was a little like superwoman. Walking all this time and still trying to help people at the other end. He had threatened to sit on her if she didn't sit down on the couch and rest for at least another few hours before attempting to get up and do something else, and she had agreed.

He wasn't sure how long that would last though, knowing her, probably an hour tops. Roger made up his mind to check on her on his way back out of the clinic. _'That w__ill__ fix her'_He thought affectionately.

Gail broke the comfortable silence. "Roger, I've just asked Riss to move in with us for a while. I want her to occupy the three rooms underneath the back of the house. Do you think that's a good idea?"

Gail knew exactly what she was up to asking him this. She knew that no matter what the answer he gave she would still offer the rooms, but she thought Riss might be more likely to accept the offer if Roger approved of it.

"I think that's a great idea Gail! Thank you for thinking of her. I was going to invite her to stay with Emily and me if I couldn't find somewhere else for her. The church hall where the others are for the moment just isn't the right environment for her and the kids." He looked at Riss's face. She looked like she was pleased albeit a little emotionally overwhelmed at Gail's offer.

Gail looked eagerly at Riss, waiting for her reply.

"Well…I guess so. It was so lovely of you to ask us though Gail and you have to make sure it won't be imposing on anyone else in the house." Riss was a little worried even though Gail had assured her that she had spoken to her husband. It wasn't every day that you just picked someone up off the street and took them into your house.

"Not at all." Gail sounded reassuring. "Eric won't mind at all. He and April have one of the upstairs bedrooms, and we have a four bedroom house. Jake has one of the bedrooms upstairs too, and Johnston and I of course have the other one. There is still one spare one up there if we need it."

Gail thought quickly.

"There is a futon bed down in the rooms underneath. The floors are already carpeted from where the boys used to use them as sleepover and party spots, so warmth isn't a problem really. Oh and there is a toilet near the laundry in the downstairs part of the house. Although it might be a bit musty, we don't use it much. You'll have to go upstairs to use the shower and bath though; unfortunately we don't have the luxury of two bathrooms." Gail paused to take a breath, and thought about the porta cot she knew that Jimmy and Margaret Taylor still had from their children being babies.

"There are two small single beds already downstairs too honey, so the girls can have them." Gail looked at Riss. She looked a little overcome at the speed that things seemed to be falling into place.

Roger just stood there with a huge smile on his face.

"Ok ladies, I have to go check on Jessica again before I head off to the church to see the others. I'll catch up with you later on today sometime."

With a smile and a wave at Riss and Gail he disappeared, still limping out the door and down towards the TV room of the clinic.

Riss looked at Gail. "Thank you so much. You know, you didn't have to do any of this for me. It was enough that you were nice enough to sit with me, and cajole Jake into sitting with me too last night."

"Huh."Gail replied. "It was nothing. And believe me; Jake didn't need much encouragement to sit with you either." She shot a quick look at Riss to gauge her reaction.

Riss just looked down suddenly at where Dom's little hands were playing with the truck Gail had brought in for him and blushed.

Gail decided to leave it at that judging by the reaction she got to that statement and started to think about going to look for April to see when Riss could leave the clinic.

She patted Riss on the shoulder. "Are you going to be ok with the kids here for a while? Dominic won't be too much for you will he?" Gail was worried he might take off on her and Riss's feet being like they were, she wouldn't be able to chase him.

"No, he will be fine I think." Riss laughed. "I don't think he is going very far at all." She looked down at Dom, who was still sitting right in the middle of her lap playing with his toy.

"Besides, I have Jessica and Emaly here just in case anyway. I'm sure one of them can get him before he gets away on me."

Riss was very glad that other members of their group had been carrying the girls most of the way when they were walking. She knew that if they hadn't done that, Jessica and Emaly probably would take more time than they were taking to recover.

_'There are a lot of things I need to thank the group for.'_ Riss thought this to herself, knowing that the first thing she would do when she got out of the clinic was go and see all the others.

Gail just smiled at the girls who had perked their heads up from their game. "Ok then, I must go and see April to check on when I can get you out of here."

Riss suddenly thought of a question she had been wondering about since she woke up that morning.

"Gail, before you leave, I was wondering if I could ask you something."

"Yes? Anything I can do for you I would, you know that." Gail looked expectantly at Riss.

"Before I left Australia, I was studying at university to become a nurse, but I was going to specialize in midwifery. It was something I had been thinking about for a while, and when Dom turned one I decided he could have daycare and I would start my course finally. Is there any chance that I could use what I've learnt here at the clinic to help? I was at the end of my second year when I left to come over here." Riss looked hopefully at Gail. She knew that as she hadn't completed the midwifery course that she couldn't do these things by herself, but Riss wanted to help if she could anyway.

"Um, well I'm sure you can sweetheart! I have to check with April first but I know there are a couple of pregnant women in the community at the moment, Mrs. McGregor and Emily's aunty, Jane Dawson has just found out she is pregnant again. She is bound to have a really hard time of it, being that she is over 40 and all." Gail was taken aback for a moment, but very pleased anyway. She knew that April had been taking care of the women in the community for this sort of thing, but Gail knew that having a midwife in the clinic, even if Riss had only done her second year, would be extremely helpful to give checkups and save April some time.

Riss had a slightly relieved look on her face. "Thank you Gail. I would appreciate your checking with April. As soon as I'm back on my feet I can find Dom and the girls a sitter for a couple of hours so I can start coming in when they schedule appointments."

"Oh no you won't." Gail had a thoroughly upset look on her face at this comment.

"If there is any looking after of these kids while you volunteer going on, then it will be me having them." Gail just grinned teasingly at Riss, hoping she hadn't come across too strong with this comment.

"Oh but I can't impose on you like that. I was just going to find out who needed work out of the community and work my way through finding out who was the most trustworthy." Riss was a little shocked at how much emphasis Gail had put on the argument to her statement. She hadn't even thought about getting her to look after them. Riss just figured that Gail had other stuff to do.

"Oh no honey. I couldn't let someone else look after these kids. They are too precious for that. They will stay with me if you start volunteering, and that's that." Gail hoped Riss had the point that she wasn't budging on this conversation.

"And now I really have to go find April." Gail stood up, dropped a kiss on the top of Riss's head and strode determinedly out of the room, closing the door behind her as an added safety to Dom getting out.

Riss just sat there for a little while, thinking about what had just transpired. She hadn't expected to be accepted into this community as readily as they had. Or be accepted by someone like Gail. Growing up had been tough for Riss. She didn't have a mum since she had died after Riss was born, and her dad was always away working, leaving her to live with her grand mum and granddad. And even though she loved them dearly, there was nothing like the generation gap to make things seem a hell of a lot worse growing up.

Riss always had imagined having someone like Gail as a mum, someone she could talk to, and laugh with, and who wouldn't take offence to everything she said that was out of line like her grandmother did.

Shaking the thoughts away, Riss pulled herself out of her reverie. Now wasn't the time to start thinking of Gail as anything to her but a friend. One she could definitely use at the moment, Riss admitted to herself. She just hoped everything worked out for the others as well as it was working out for her, especially Jessica. But she had the feeling by the look on Roger's face when he was talking about Jessica earlier on that everything would be just fine.

Riss knew Roger but she didn't know his fiancée, but she figured that everything was fair in love and war at the moment anyway, and if there was a chance that anyone could get anything right in this mess of a world, then she was all for it.

To be continued.

A/N: Beware Emily/Roger lovers. The things mentioned at the end of this chapter may have upset you, so you have been warned about what may come. Riss is on the side of whatever makes Roger happy, and if that means being against Emily then so be it. Just a friendly warning anyway. Lol


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Warnings: Bad language. I swear like a sailor and it has come out a bit in this chapter, sorry!

Timeline: 200X1130 (Bombs+61)

Feedback: Please! I love it; the more detailed the better so I can work out what parts to kick in the head and what parts to keep

Summary: In this chapter Roger has a conversation with Jessica, and Emily sees them. What will she think? Riss and April form a strong bond and start their friendship.

A/N : Thank you once again to my wonderful beta Shades! I really appreciate all the help!

Chapter 6

Roger walked slowly along the hallway in the dim light, still with his mind on Riss and the kids. He knew that they would be fine now, since Gail had taken them under her wing. And if the truth be known, that took a load off his mind. He knew that he couldn't have let them move into the church hall with the others, but Roger also knew that Emily would never cope with having the kids around at their house.

Jessica looked up as Roger entered the room. "Hey! I thought you were going to visit Riss?" She smiled in welcome and patted the couch seat beside her, where she sat with her feet up on a puff.

"Yeah I did. She is getting on just fine. Gail asked her to bring the kids and move in with them for a little while." Roger sat in the seat intended for him and looked at the view of the street in front of them out the window.

"Oh wow! " Jessica exclaimed. "That's great! I was hoping that we would be able to find somewhere for Riss to stay other than the church. I didn't think it would do the kids any good to not be able to have somewhere to run around without disturbing everyone else." Jessica was definitely pleased.

"I see you're still sitting down?" Roger chuckled at Jess. "Scared I might actually sit on you?" He laughed.

Jess answered him, "You wish!" She laughed at the fake shocked look on Roger's face.

"Nope, not scared at all. I actually felt like I wanted to sit. Wasn't sure if I should get under April's feet any more than I was; she was getting a little bit crabby with me." Jessica knew that it wouldn't be long before she could get back up and do some more. She couldn't handle sitting down like this, when her medical training could allow her to help people. Jess gave a thought to Riss. 'She must be feeling the same way. I know how much she hates to sit down and do nothing'

Roger just looked at Jess, marveling at how bubbly and happy she was, even in the face of what they had been through in the last weeks. "How long till they say you can get out of here?"

"Tomorrow probably. April was really happy with the way my feet were looking this morning. The badly infected blisters have already started to heal, and the other ones aren't developing into infections. So I would imagine

Riss would be the same. At least I hope so." Jessica lapsed into silence.

Jessica fell into her reverie, remembering the fact that she couldn't go home, and that she wasn't even sure if she had a home to go to still. Just thinking about that made her upset for Riss too, not knowing if Australia had been bombed too, or if it was just over here in the States. She knew Riss hadn't planned a time limit for staying here, but staying voluntarily was quite different to being forced to make a new, permanent life in a town where you know no one.

Jess felt Roger's arm go around her shoulders and squeeze her gently. She could feel the fact that he knew what she was thinking, somehow without even talking to her. But the physical comfort just made her feel worse instead of better, and, embarrassing herself, she burst into tears.

"Shh, shhh, it's ok. We will be ok, Jess." Roger drew her closer to him to rest her head on his shoulder, and just sat there in silence. He knew that what she needed most of all was to let it out. What they had been through was something that they wouldn't forget, and he somehow instinctively knew that Jess was thinking about her home, and her family.

Not knowing about family and friends was worse than anything else, he knew that. He just hoped that like he could be here for Jess when she was breaking down, that someone would be there for Riss when it happened to her too. Roger knew that the women had suffered out on the road, even though Riss and Jess were tough, and that they couldn't hold it in themselves forever.

Jess sniffled and wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. She felt silly now crying like that. But she was very glad that Roger was there. Somehow, even though they had only known each other for a short time, he felt safe to her. Probably safer than a lot of people she had known in her life if she thought about it enough.

Roger looked down at her and lifted her face up to him. "Ok now?" He gave her a gentle smile, noticing the sad look still in her eyes.

"Yeah, I'm ok. Sorry about that. I just lost it for a minute thinking about everything. "Jessica looked up into Roger's blue eyes that were concentrated fully on her.

Not realizing what a picture they presented sitting on the couch Roger and Jess stayed like that for a couple more minutes. Emily walked past the room looking for Roger and spotted his head over the top of the couch. She came a little further into the room, and then spotted Jessica, still sitting extremely close to Roger with her head tilted upwards and his arm still around her. They were both smiling and laughing at something one of them had said.

_'What the hell is going on here?'_ Emily thought. She could have said it out loud though and she probably wouldn't have noticed, with the shock that was coursing through her at the scene laid out in front of her. _'How can he do this to me? After all we went through, he comes back to Jericho, and he just carries on with one of the people he brought back with him?'_

Emily was tempted to say something, but she just backed out of the room instead. Her thoughts were laced with anger, and parts of sadness. She didn't realize that what she had witnessed was, at the time, perfectly innocent. Just two friends who had been through the same trials and tribulations comforting each other and helping each other along.

But then Emily had never been one to think about things. That was one of her problems all her life, she jumped to conclusions and more often than not, they landed her in trouble, because they were the wrong ones. Her teachers at school, her mother when she was alive and her Aunt had all tried to convince a younger Emily that she should think about things more before jumping in head first, but to no avail. Emily's mother used to say when she was younger that she was more like her father than her little brother Chris would ever be.

She walked towards the clinic door quickly, not watching where she was going; not thinking about what she was doing when suddenly she ran into a wall of lean muscle. The arms of the person that she had ran into closed around her to stop her from falling.

"Hey! What's up, Em?"

It was Jake. Just the person she didn't want to see at the moment. Emily tried to wrench free of his hands where

they had settled on her upper arms to steady her, but Jake wasn't letting her go.

"Nothing's wrong, Jake. Just let me go. I need to go!" Emily was fast becoming a little hysterical, her voice raising a little.

Jake paid no attention to her and tried to look into her eyes. She refused to look at him.

"Just let me go, Jake!" Emily screeched and finally broke free of Jake's grasp. "This is because of you. All this stuff, these feelings I have, this confusion is all because of you!" She shot this at Jake, her eyes blazing. Emily's voice was probably loud enough to carry off down the hallway and reach the other end, but she didn't care. It wasn't fair. Just not fair, the way that everything had worked out.

Emily was so hopeful when she saw Roger walk in with the refugees and now she realized it was all going to shit. All because of the fact that Jake was back in town and her feelings were all over the place. She wondered frantically whether she had shown a bit of the feelings she still harbored for Jake to Roger, and that she had somehow driven him into that girls arms.

Riss was lying asleep on the bed when the raised voices woke her with a start. She forgot where she was for a moment, then, as a bolt of panic rushed through her, she realized that the voice wasn't familiar to her. Calming down, she climbed off the bed and walked slowly to the door, opening it to see what was going on.

Out in the hallway Emily decided she didn't care anymore. She just backed away from Jake who was still standing there with a confused and hurt look on his face.

Emily started to walk down the hallway more quickly than before. She noticed the blond woman leaning on the doorframe three rooms down who was standing there with a concerned look on her face, but she paid no attention, just thinking 'Great. Now the whole damn clinic knows about my problems.'

Emily raced past Riss out the door of the clinic and into the sunshine outside.

Riss went back into her room and shut the door quietly, leaning against it with a sigh. Jake hadn't even known she was standing there when Emily was yelling at him. He was too busy shaking his head with a hurt look on his face and obviously trying to figure out exactly what had just happened.

Sitting back on the bed, Riss thought about what she had just seen and heard. She wondered if something had gone on between her and Roger for Emily to be behaving like that...But then she thought about what Emily had said and debated upon the fact that there had been something between Emily and Jake too, maybe before Roger came back to town.

Riss mentally slapped herself for speculating. She had never been one to jump to conclusions, especially not about people she had known for all of a few days and she wasn't about to start now. Even more so considering the fact that she had to basically live in the same house as Jake.

The first time she had seen him in the middle of the night he had pissed her off when he grabbed her, but after that she had time to notice him when Gail had brought the kids back. By the time Riss had spoken to Jake when he was leaving, she had noticed his expressive brown eyes, and the way his hair flopped over his forehead and the gentle way he had helped her up off the floor.

Shaking these thoughts Riss scolded herself. This wasn't the time to get caught up in a crush, and definitely not a crush on someone she was going to have to live in close quarters with. Gail had been too nice and too sweet to her for Riss to start thinking about her son that way and jeopardizing any future friendships if she got in the way of anything Jake already had going for him.

Still a little lost in her thoughts Riss jumped when the door opened. A redheaded woman poked her head in the door.

"All good in here? Can I come in?"

"Hi!' Riss smiled in welcome. "Yeah, come in by all means." Riss noticed the beautiful smile on the ladies face.

"I'm April, Eric's wife. Gail sent me to have a chat with you about some stuff… You up to it?" April came further into the room, pulling up a chair that was over the other side and placing it near the bed.

"Sure April. I'm Riss, although you probably know that already." Riss laughed. She felt comfortable already with April; her openness was contagious.

"Yeah, I did." April smiled. "But it's always nice to be able to introduce yourself to someone anyway."

Both Riss and April laughed.

"I have been hearing wonderful things from Gail and Jessica about you. They both tell me you are a more than capable midwife in training. That's something we could definitely use around here. Do you think you might want to do some part time work here? We would love to have you on the staff."

April took stock of the young woman sitting in front of her. Riss had a kind face with a bright smile and dimples that showed up when she smiled or laughed. April was grateful all at once and sad for Riss too that she had been dropped into the middle of this town. It was going to be a Godsend to have a nearly trained midwife in their midst though, especially one that had children already and could empathize with the mothers to be.

Riss blushed under the gaze that April was giving her and the compliment that had been said.

"I would love to help if you would let me. I was about to start my third year of study next year; I only had to finish my exams off when I got back to Australia. I took a leave of absence for a few weeks because of some troubles with my relationship with my ex." Riss sighed deeply. April noticed a shadow pass across Riss's face at the mention of this. But it was gone as soon as it had appeared so she thought better of saying anything and left it alone.

"Well you sound qualified enough to me!" April grinned at Riss.

"I apologize if I'm wrong April, but you're pregnant too, aren't you?" Riss could tell just by looking at her face, if not her slightly rounded stomach. April's face had the glow that she had seen on just about every pregnant woman's face that she had known, but on April's it was coupled with dark circles around her eyes and lines of strain on her forehead.

April looked down looking a little uncomfortable. "Yeah, I am. I think I'm about 12 to 14 weeks along. I can't tell for sure, things have been so stressful around here lately that I lost track of when my last period was." It was April's turn to have a shadow cross her face this time.

Riss looked at April with concern. It was obvious that she wasn't taking care of herself the way a mother to be should have been. And there was something else stressing her that Riss couldn't quite put her finger on, but she intended to find out.

"Well, congratulations!" Riss leaned over and gave April an impulsive hug, knowing instinctively that the younger woman needed it.

"If you don't mind, would you like me to have a look at you? I could check a couple of things you probably can't do yourself?" The thought occurred to Riss too late to take it back that Kenchy had probably already checked April over, but she figured the offer probably wouldn't hurt anyway.

"Oh Riss, thank you. I probably get worked up over nothing, but sometimes… Sometimes it's just good to have someone else confirm what you already know." In the next breath she answered Riss's unspoken question. "I haven't had Kenchy look at me. He is a plastic surgeon anyway, and I really didn't feel comfortable with a male doctor."

Riss could identify with that statement. There were very few male doctors she would allow to examine her either, whether she was pregnant or not. She didn't know if April's concerns about Kenchy stemmed from the same problems as she had with males though. Riss hoped not.

April stood up and handed her stethoscope to Riss, moving past her and lying back on the bed. Riss waited for her to get comfortable and arrange her clothes so she could get to her tummy.

"Ok." Riss rubbed her hands together to try and generate some heat. She didn't want to make April uncomfortable by freezing her stomach the first time she examined her.

Putting her hands on April's tummy she could feel the little rounded bump just above the pelvic bone. The size of the uterus was conducive to about 13 weeks, at least from what Riss could tell without a tape measure. Of course the baby wasn't active on the outside yet, so she had no idea about movements and things like that, but from the way April's stomach felt, everything was just fine at the moment.

Riss shot April a reassuring smile. "Everything feels good to me there, about 13 weeks by my measurements. Let me see if I can grab a heartbeat before you get up." April gratefully smiled at Riss.

"I know I'm probably not going to get anything, being that you aren't very far along, but I can try anyway. It's not usually till about 18 weeks that you can get a babies heart rate with this." Riss was cheerful and optimistic.

She knew that the art of listening with a stethoscope to a babies heart rate was outdated now, because everyone used the Doppler's, but Riss had been brought up old school with an aunt who was a registered nurse years ago, and she had learnt that a stethoscope was often more reliable than other methods anyway for those who knew how to do it.

Warming up the end of the stethoscope before she put it on April's tummy, Riss listened concentrating hard on

what she could hear. At one stage she wasn't sure if she did hear the fast swishing of a fetus's heartbeat, but she wasn't certain enough to take any measurements.

Looking down at April and removing the instrument from her tummy Riss grinned. "Told you, nothing I could hear there. But with the size of your tummy at the moment, and my guess at how far along you are, I wouldn't be worrying about that anyway."

Riss grabbed April's arm to help her up off the bed into a sitting position.

"So, how has your diet been? Getting enough protein and calcium?" Riss was concerned about this, as April looked like she could put on another few kilos to be a healthy weight for being about 13 weeks.

"Well, there really isn't that much around at the moment. But Gail has been making sure I get at least two glasses of fresh milk from some of the farmers out of town every day, and we have been adding canned vegetables to a lot of stuff that we cook just so I get the protein and few nutrients that are in them." April gave a half a laugh at the pathetic amount of nutritious stuff that was in a can of veggies anyway.

"I guess I should be grateful you are getting a bit of stuff like that though April." Riss tried to remember whether she had seen her backpack since she had been in here. Getting up, she looked around for it, spotting it over in the corner of the room.

"In my bag, I have some Elevit; they are a pregnancy multivitamin that we use in Australia. I used them through all of my pregnancies, and they were the ones recommended to me. I bought three packs of 100 over with me, as I had a few friends that were thinking about trying to conceive and thought I might make them healthy." Riss laughed and handed a packet of the tablets to April.

"Take one of these a day, and it should help with the vitamin side of things. I don't know what the difference between these and the ones you have here are, but these are a complete one." Riss watched and gave April a glass of water off the side table when she noticed April was immediately taking one of the tablets.

April swallowed and then replied. "Well, at the moment we don't have any here. We ran out shortly after the bombs went off, and when my husband and Jake went to Rogue River here about a month ago, I didn't even want to ask them for something as trivial as this. Not to mention the fact that Eric still didn't know about the baby then." She got a funny look on her face as she said that.

"Excuse me for being nosy, but he knows now, doesn't he? Does Gail know?" Riss asked with concern in her voice.

"Oh yeah, he knows alright. He just hasn't bothered to worry about it much. He has been off with the local barmaid here for a while now. Eric is a stubborn man. He keeps telling me he is going to get rid of her, but never does, and I really don't know what to believe anymore. The main thing is that he is good to me, and that I love his family, so I guess I can put up with it for a bit longer." April gave Riss a tired smile. "And, of course Gail knows. She has been a rock for me, trying to get me enough to eat and other things I need."

"Well this is neither the time nor the place for this conversation, April, but my opinion of cheating men is that they are as low as the gutter that they crouch in. And I hate them with a passion. But I won't say anything to Eric that I know, even though I would love to wring his Godforsaken neck for it." Riss chucked her small backpack into the drawer beside her, and shut it with a loud clunk, signifying her frustration with men like that.

"You sound like you had the same experience then?" April raised her eyebrows at Riss and the thundery look on her face.

Riss just sighed.

"Yeah, you could say that. I just don't want you to make the same mistake as me. I stayed with the bastard for ten long years and three kids. That's not the way it should be." Riss closed her mouth with an audible snap. She didn't want to let out what had happened in her relationship. It was embarrassing enough that she hadn't had the guts to leave for so many years, let alone to be telling someone about it.

"I just don't want you to end up jaded like me April, that's all honey." Riss cast another glance at April.

"Riss, I have no idea what's going on half the time with any of the people in this town; I don't even know who I am when I look at myself in the mirror in the morning anymore. I just can't give up on Eric and I like this though." April looked like she was on the verge of tears as Riss went and sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"It's ok, April. Just promise me, if you ever need someone to talk to, or to punch Eric in the nose and wake him up to himself, you will come to me. Ok?" Riss looked hopefully at April.

"Ok. But you have to promise that you will come to me to chat sometime too. It's not good that you are keeping all that stuff I can see in there. Deal?" April grinned at Riss. She was happy that she could do something for Riss out of this bargain too; she just didn't realize how stubborn Riss was, and how much she could take before she opened up to someone.

"Deal." Riss gave April a hug. Already she could feel that she and April would hopefully become friends. She could tell April was a sweet person that just didn't spend enough time worrying about herself because she was too worried about others. And Riss knew, for the sake of the baby, it had to change.

They started at the sound of the door, looked over and chorused in unison, "Hi, Gail!"

Gail just stood there and laughed at the two girls sitting close together on the bed. She had a feeling earlier on when she had asked April about Riss helping that the two girls would become fast friends, and she was hoping that Jessica could join in that friendship too. Lord knows all the girls needed each other.

"Hey girls. How are things?"

"Good thanks, Gail. I inspected your daughter in law, and as she suspected, she is about 13 weeks pregnant with your grandchild. Gave her some vitamins to take, and hopefully we can get her some rest so she can be right on track." Riss had a pleased smile on her face at being able to deliver that news to her.

Gail rushed over and hugged April. "That's great news, honey! I can see that Riss is going to fit in around here just fine." She stopped and looked around. "I came in here expecting to see the kids. Where did they disappear to?"

"Oh Bonnie- I think it is- came in earlier with another volunteer; Mimi? They took the girls and Dom off to the playroom so I could rest and get some more sleep. They looked like they couldn't get the kids off to play with them fast enough." All three women laughed at this, only Gail and April knowing what Mimi used to be like with kids before she fell in love with Stanley, so they laughed all the harder at this thought.

"Then something woke me up so I was just sitting here when April came in." Riss decided not to mention the argument she had heard between Jake and Emily. It wasn't right that she talk about it; after all, it wasn't even any of her business to start with.

"So can we take her home this afternoon, April?" Gail looked at her in expectation.

"I think she should wait till tomorrow morning. I still want to look at those feet of hers once more, although they are healing up faster than I expected. But I think she needs the extra rest really." April was sure about this.

After all it hadn't been very long at all since all the refugees had come into Jericho, and she wasn't taking any risks as far as Riss was concerned.

"I'm all good with that, April." Riss nodded her head. "I think I could use the extra night in here too. Gives me a chance to keep an eye on you and make sure you go home tonight!" Riss laughed in glee as the tables were turned on April, and as she realized that she wasn't going to be able to work her ass off anymore.

April had a shocked look on her face but broke into laughter just the same as Gail and Riss.

There was a knock on the door just then, and Jessica poked her head in the door.

"Can anyone join in this party?" Jess looked confused at what the source of all the laughter was.

Riss went over to her and gave her a hug. "Good to see you, hon! And yes, you can join in the plan to make April rest more." Jess just looked at April and back to Riss in bewilderment.

"It's ok, will explain later." Riss said.

April hugged Riss as she walked past her on the way to the door. "I have to go. We have been in here gasbagging for over an hour now, the nurses and Kenchy will be wondering where I am!" She disappeared out the door.

Gail also gave Riss a hug. "I am going to go and find your munchkins and get them something for dinner." She put up a hand to stop Riss protesting. "Nope, not going to change my mind. Stay here and have a girly chat with Jess, and I will bring them back later with some food for you." Gail just walked out without leaving Riss any time to argue.

Jess and Riss sat there for a few minutes before beginning to talk a million miles a minute. There was so much for both of them to catch up on…

To Be Continued.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters from the CBS show Jericho. All OFCs are mine though. I do not earn anything from writing these stories, in fact the only thing you might get if you sue me would be my four troublesome kids and they are only worth something to me.

Warnings: Bad language. I swear like a sailor and it has come out a bit in this chapter, sorry!

Timeline: 200X1130 (Bombs+61)

Feedback: Please! I love it; the more detailed the better so I can work out what parts to kick in the head and what parts to keep

Summary: In this chapter Jess and Riss talk and come to some interesting conclusions. Riss prepares to move to the Green household, and gets ready to go to the first town meeting.

_A/N : Thanks once again to Shades for betaing this perfectly. I really appreciate the time you spend on my writing!_

Chapter 7

Riss and Jessica sat on the bed, cross-legged, facing each other. They both started to speak at once and then both motioned the other to go first. And laughed out loud at the results.

"I can't believe how nice the people are here!" Jessica ended up getting the first word in, so Riss just fell silent to listen to her. "It's like we have come in here, we aren't related to them, and we haven't got anything, but they are treating us like we are town members!"

Riss had to agree. "Yeah, I know. I have been absolutely flabbergasted by the welcoming attitude of the Greens and everyone else! Gail asking me to stay with them was so wonderful. Not to mention the fact that I have the kids and she seems to have adopted them already." Riss sighed.

"I think they are just great people." Jess was firm in her answer to that one. "Roger was right when he said we would be welcomed here."

They mutually agreed on that one. Neither of them expected the kindness that had come from the people of Jericho. Little did Riss know that there was one person though, that wasn't so kind, just waiting in the wings to have his say about the matter. But he too was going to get shut down by everyone; he just didn't know it yet.

Riss looked at Jess with a weird look on her face. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Yeah, what is it?" Jess wondered what the matter was.

"This afternoon when I was dozing, after Bonnie and Mimi had taken the kids, there was shouting out in the hallway. I got up to look and see what it was, and Emily was out there yelling her head off at Jake. She seemed really upset about something, and I thought you might know if she and Roger had a fight?" Riss was still sure that it wasn't that though. She was positive that there was a history between Emily and Jake. She just wasn't sure it was something she wanted to know about.

"Hmmm, I don't think so. Roger was with me for a while after he visited you this afternoon and I never saw Emily at all…" Jessica's words trailed off as she realized something.

"Oh shit. Oh crap." Jessica just sat there with her mouth open.

"What?" Riss was concerned at the sudden change in Jessica's mood.

"This afternoon when Roger came to visit me, we were talking about stuff that was outside of Jericho. Actually, not really talking about it, just sitting there and thinking about it. I sort of broke down, you know, finally let it all out. I guess I felt safe enough to do that or something." Riss could hear Jess's brain working as she spoke.

"Well Roger sort of hugged me. It was just one of those friend things, you know the comforting ones. But it was strange, after he hugged me; we actually just sat there for a little bit, still cuddled up. You know, just talking and making each other laugh. I sort of thought I saw someone in the room for a second, but then I wasn't sure so I didn't say anything…. Oh shit…" Jess trailed off again.

"Well, what?" Riss didn't understand where she was going with this story. It fit with what she at least suspected Roger felt for Jess, but Riss wasn't sure why she was so upset over it.

"Don't you see? Emily walked in on us! That was who I saw out of the corner of my eye." Jess was aghast. She had never been the type to move in on anyone else's territory, and the whole thing was making her really uncomfortable now. Her first thought was getting to Roger and explaining somehow.

"Oh wow." Riss just didn't seem equally upset about it.

"Why aren't you as upset as I am Riss? You know how much Roger loves Emily!" Jessica couldn't understand why Riss was reacting the way she was to this. She knew how much Riss detested people cheating on their partners and it was out of character for her just to be sitting silently without saying something smartass about how Jess should have been more careful.

"Well…" Riss tried to think of the best words to use without giving too much away.

"This afternoon, when I overheard the fight between Emily and Jake, I just thought something wasn't right. It just wasn't fair of Emily to take whatever was wrong with her out on Jake. Or at least I thought so until I heard her tell Jake that the feelings she had were entirely his fault." Riss stopped at that. She wasn't about to share the rest of what she had heard, or the desperate tone in Emily's voice. Least of all the hurt look on Jake's face as he had turned to walk off without noticing Riss standing there.

Riss could tell that Jess was coming to the same conclusion that she was.

"You think there is or was something between Emily and Jake? You think she might have been cheating on Roger?" Jessica was as equally flummoxed by this slight revelation as she was by the thought that Emily might have gotten the wrong idea about her and Roger.

"Well, I really don't know. But I'm not speculating about it anymore. That's their business, and I really don't want to discuss it. Not when I have to live with the guy and his whole family anyway. I just think that you ought to give it some time before you run to Roger to apologize. Let him sort a bit of it out with Emily first, just in case it wasn't what you thought." Riss was adamant in her words to Jessica. As far as she was concerned Jessica and Roger hadn't done anything wrong, and she wasn't about to entertain the idea that they had.

"So, you met April today. What do you think?" Jess thankfully dropped the subject of Emily and Roger and unknowingly launched herself right into another sore spot for Riss.

Riss just groaned inwardly. "I like her! She is really cute and funny. I did an examination on her today and she is right on course for being 13 weeks pregnant. It's so exciting!" Riss was glad she had managed to get that sentence out without bringing anything else up. She wasn't about to abuse Aprils confidences in her, even if it was to her best friend.

"I thought she was cool too, if a little bit grouchy." Jess laughed, not meaning anything by it.

"You have to remember how I was when I was 13 weeks pregnant with Dom. Remember when you came to stay with me and I bit your head off every morning?" Riss and Jess both cracked up laughing at what a moody bitch she had been when she was pregnant. Not a morning person at all, Riss had to have her coffee and cig in the morning before she could even look at another person, let alone talk to them.

"Yeah, I guess she has a good excuse." Jess replied knowingly.

"Oh and she has a lot of other stresses too, Jess. She isn't getting enough sleep, and she's working herself to the bone here. I really hope I can get her to slow down a bit, because if I can't we are going to need to keep a really close eye on that baby." Riss just didn't want to think about the possibility.

She had seen too many women work themselves into the ground at this stage of pregnancy and suffer from either losing the baby from pure malnutrition and exhaustion, or just because of something that could have been prevented with a little more sleep and taking care of themselves.

"Well girl." Jess held up her hand for Riss to high five her. "I guess it's up to you and me to make sure that she doesn't work herself into the ground, isn't it? She is your patient now, so you gotta take care of her."

Riss high fived Jess and then stopped and repeated the sentence in her head. It didn't seem real. None of this did. The fact that she was here in a little town she had never heard of, tending to a pregnant doctor-and other pregnant ladies to come- when she hadn't anticipated practicing midwifery for at least another couple of years, it was just nearly too hard to believe. Riss's thoughts turned to back home. She wondered how her family was doing, how her best friends and their kids were and all the rest of the people she loved.

Riss sighed. The lack of information from home was killing her. Especially seeing as she knew her ex wasn't happy about her going away, and wanted her to leave the kids with him. But she had refused. Riss wasn't about to leave the kids and go away for so long, when she had no idea when she was coming back. Not with him and his assorted floozies anyway. That just wasn't going to happen. Not in this universe anyway.

She did wonder though whether he had been serious about threatening to follow her. Riss didn't really think he would, he was weak as water when it came to the sorts of things like following up on threats. 'At least the ones that didn't involve hitting her' she thought with a pang of anger, but she couldn't be sure he hadn't.

Riss would rather be worrying about it, and making sure she remembered it was a possibility than forgetting about it, and having it be a complete shock when he suddenly appeared somewhere and blew in to wreck everything.

Riss knew that this wasn't very likely though. If he had gotten as far as the States, he could have been in any one of the towns that were nuked by the bombs.

Riss had flown into Los Angeles weeks ago, and, from what she had heard, that was one of the bombed cities and was in total chaos. If he had taken the same path as her, the chances were that he didn't even exist anymore for her to worry about anyway.

She breathed a deep sigh. Even thinking about him was giving her a headache.

Jess was busy lost in her own thoughts about Roger. She couldn't understand why Emily didn't just come into the room and speak to her and Roger earlier.

'I didn't mean anything by it. Oh God this is a great way to reward the town for taking you in Jess. Make it look like you are stealing one of their own.'

The thoughts just went around and around in her head. Jess was fairly innocent in the relationship world. She hadn't been out on many dates at all in her life; even fewer since she started her medical student training. The guys liked her-that wasn't the problem- but Jess didn't want to get close to any of them.

Only Riss knew the truth about her, and why she couldn't get close to guys, and that was the way it was going to stay. Jessica knew that Riss would take the secret to the grave with her, and apart from her mom and dad, she was the only other one that knew. Not even Misty knew. They were all friends, but where Misty and Riss had been friends for years, Jess had only met Riss about two years ago when they were both on a medical discussion board.

They had their interests and goals in life in common and struck an immediate phone and email conversation that had lasted the two years until Riss came to visit.

Jess just didn't know what to do. In the end, she just thought better of saying anything to Roger or Emily, and decided she would follow the advice that Riss had given her and steer clear of apologizing to either of them for the meantime. She liked him, but she wasn't about to go stepping on anyone else's turf. And she wasn't even sure if she liked him that way anyway.

'Damn it' Jess shook her head in confusion. She wasn't even sure what she felt anymore.

Thankfully the girls thoughts were both brought to a standstill by the very noisy arrival of the kids. Accompanied of course by Gail, Bonnie and Mimi. The adults were having a sedate conversation about Thanksgiving last week, and how there was still some supplies left over from the day. The kids however were nowhere near sedate.

Riss jumped considerably as Jessica and Emaly both barreled into her, talking about everything at once. She caught bits about "Best tea ever" and "Grandpa Johnston." This made her ears immediately prick up.

"Hey kids, slow down! I can't hear both of you at once." Riss looked over to where Dom was quite happily ensconced in Mimi's arms, playing with her long, dark hair. Mimi didn't look upset at all about this, so Riss turned her attention back to the girls.

"What was that I heard about Grandpa Johnston? You can't just go around calling people Grandpa without them telling you that you can, and you hardly know anyone here to be able to do that anyway!" Riss was a little upset. The thought that her kids had started calling someone Grandpa without being told was slightly unsettling.

She thought her children knew better manners than that.

Gail stepped towards the girls and Riss where they were sitting on the side of the bed.

"It's ok, Riss. Honestly it is. We went to Town Hall to find out what Johnston and the boys were doing for dinner, and the girls took an immediate shine to Johnston. They couldn't work out what to call him, so he suggested Grandpa Johnston." Gail could see that Riss was upset over it. She just hoped that they hadn't overstepped the line. The thought ran through her head that she might have scared Riss off, and honestly, it wasn't her intention at all to do that.

Riss just stood there, deep in thought for a minute, and then grinned at the kids. "Ok you two. If you are sure that 'Grandpa Johnston' said it was ok, then I guess it's ok." Riss groaned at the weight of two bodies hurtling towards her making impact and nearly knocking her off the bed.

Gail smiled. "Oh and I told them that they could call me Grandma Gail too. I know how hard it is to remember to call people Mr. and Mrs. at their ages. I thought it might make it a bit easier for them."

She leaned closer to Riss and whispered in her ear. "Just thought it might make them feel more at home too; they seemed a little uncomfortable at first with the town." Gail pulled back and smiled at Riss.

"Thanks Gail. I do appreciate it. I just worry that sometimes they get so excited that they lose their manners." Riss gave the girls a cautionary look that warned them against losing them, ever.

"It's not how they were brought up anyway. Their manners have always been exceptional, even though they are only children."

Gail and Riss both looked up at the laughter coming from Dominic who had Mimi's hair twirled around his fingers and was trying to eat it. Mimi just kept on moving her head so he couldn't get it in his mouth and Dom thought it was hilarious.

"You should have seen these girls and Johnston at Town Hall, Riss. It was the absolute funniest thing." Mimi just giggled at the thought of what they had been up to. "They were a little out of sorts at first, but both ended up sitting on Johnston's lap in the end, while he regaled them with stories about ponies and horses out at the ranch." Riss just raised her eyebrows at Mimi's excited words and the expression on her face.

Riss knew the girls were horse and pony mad. They had never had the room or the money for a horse though back in Australia. She had always had horses and ponies growing up though, and had been riding for at least 20 years. From what Riss could remember, her first ride on a pony was at five years old, and the damn thing had thrown her. She smiled at the memory.

"Grandpa Johnston said they have some ponies out at the ranch mum, can we go ride them sometime? He says we can!" Jessica could barely contain the excitement in her voice, and Emaly's head was nodding so hard in agreement that Riss thought it might fall off her shoulders.

Riss just looked at Gail, wondering if the older woman had some comment about this turn of events.

"If Johnston says he is going to take them, then Johnston is going to take them Riss, and there is nothing we can do about it. He always wanted a girl when I had the two boys, and I can see why now, seeing how these two have him twisted around their fingers now!" Gail laughed. "And I reckon you should come as well if you have riding experience, honey. Would definitely be fun anyway!" Gail looked at Riss expectantly.

"Well…" Riss said slowly, thinking about what she was going to say as she said it. "I guess if Grandpa Johnston and Grandma Gail say its ok, then its ok with me." She looked at Gail and answered her question next.

"And yes, riding experience is not something I lack; I've actually been riding Dressage, Pony Club and doing the showing circuit for about twenty years now. That's not including the last four years or so that I had to take off after Emaly and Jessica started to grow up. I used to ride other people's horses for them, but these two had the need to get into a routine when they started school and I started thinking about my midwifery course, so I had to give it up. It was way too time consuming." Riss looked at the girls.

She could see how excited they were just by looking at them. Riss remembered how much fun it was riding horses at this age, how much she used to look forwards to the weekly trail rides and other fun stuff.

"Well that's settled then. You can come out with us the next time Jake and I go to check on the horses, and we can see how much fun these little girls can have." Gail chuckled to herself at the thought. It would give her and the girls some much needed time together, and with a bit of luck she could leave Riss and Jake alone. Gail just silently chuckled at the thought.

A lot of people in Jericho knew what Gail Green's matchmaking skills were like. They had mostly all become prey to them at one stage or other. But Gail hadn't had a chance to work her magic on Jake yet, even though he was her son.

Jake's five year absence hadn't helped with his relationship with his father or the rest of the family either. And Gail was just grateful that Jake and Johnston were getting on a little better now. She just hoped he could tell his father whatever it was that had been bugging him since he had been back.

Gail wished she knew what had happened during his time away that was making him worry so much now. Whatever it was had turned him into a fairly mature man instead of the muddled immature boy he had been when he fled town. She hadn't heard hardly anything while he was away, no hints in the short phone calls he had made to her, and nothing in the infrequent letters he used to write. Gail had just thought he would come out with it when he was ready to talk.

Gail's mind wandered back to her matchmaking plans for Jake. Despite the fact that he hadn't been back long, Gail had noticed chemistry between him and one of the school teachers at the elementary school, Heather.

Gail had been so relieved to have Heather's help when Johnston was sick. She didn't want to think about what would have happened had Heather not been around to make ice. Gracie Leigh had told her about the kiss between Heather and Jake, but she'd noticed that nothing seemed to happen since then.

Gail had decided to put her matchmaking aside and leave them to their own devices once Gracie informed her that Heather had a longtime boyfriend-Ted- back in New Bern. Not that she knew it was the truth for sure, but just in case it was true, Gail didn't want to go ahead with anything that might interfere with Heather's relationship. She just hoped that Jake knew about Ted, because Gail knew that if he didn't, he might still be harboring feelings for Heather somehow.

Although it confused her as to why Heather had kissed Jake when she already had a boyfriend, Gail left it alone, eventually giving up on finding a girl for Jake for the time being. That only lasted until Riss came to town. As soon as Gail witnessed the looks Jake gave Riss when he thought no one was looking she decided to put her matchmaking skills to work.

Gail remembered about the town meeting suddenly. "What time is it?"

Mimi looked at the clock on the wall. It was one of the very few clocks in town that still worked, and she personally thought that it was because it was so ancient.

"It's about six thirty." And then Mimi remembered too, just as Allison Hawkins came in the door of the clinic room.

Gail turned to Riss. "We have a town meeting at seven tonight, just so you know, Riss. I thought you might like to go since we will be discussing the refugees and they will all be there, including Roger. I thought I would ask Allison to sit with the kids while we went if you wanted to go."

Riss silently took stock of Allison. She looked like a sensible girl, and Riss instinctively knew that Gail wouldn't have picked someone who was incapable of looking after the kids.

Allison took a couple of steps towards Riss. "Hi there! I'm Allison. Don't worry about the kids; they will be fine with me. I looked after my brother Sam, a lot while he was little."

Riss relaxed. Allison seemed nice, and Dom had already run over to her holding his arms up to be picked up.

"Ok then, thanks Allison. I really appreciate you doing this."

"It's no problem at all." Allison held eye contact with Riss. It was something her father had taught her well; look people in the eye, gain their trust.

The girls gave Riss a cuddle. "Bye mum, have fun!" Both girls skipped towards the door, eagerly awaiting Allison. Dom came running up to Riss and snuggled into her arms. She kissed him soundly and he too ran off towards the girls yelling "Bye!" as he went. Allison went out the door towards the playroom with the children talking excitedly to her.

Mimi and Bonnie went towards the door too. "Thanks for letting us look after the kids Riss, can't wait to have them again!" They both said pretty much in unison.

Riss looked Bonnie straight in the eyes and signed 'thank you' to her. Bonnie had taught her a little sign language when she came to pick the kids up, and was booked for future lessons with Riss when there was more time.

Bonnie just signed back and spoke at the same time. "You're welcome."

"Thanks Mimi!" Riss gave Mimi a final wave and with a promise to see her and Gail at the town meeting, both the women left the room.

Gail handed Riss the plate of food she had brought with her.

"Here, eat this before we go. You might need to keep your strength up for this meeting. We have a plan in place that Johnston and I talked about, but there is someone who isn't too happy about it," Gail started to explain the rest while Riss ate.

"My husband has had a rival for the mayoral seat for quite a few years now. His name is Gray Anderson. He is a proverbial pain and opposes everything that we try to do in this town." Gail thought about just how true that statement was, as Riss nodded her silent understanding.

"We are expecting him to oppose this too of course. We have a plan that will allow all the refugees to be billeted out, both to families that have agreed to take them in already and to vacant houses that were up for rent and sale when the bombs went off. We decided against putting them in people's houses that were away in the cities and haven't returned yet, I just didn't feel it was right at the moment. Maybe we can look at doing that in the future sometime." Gail stopped and drew a breath.

Riss just couldn't believe this had all been going on behind the scenes while she had been in the clinic. These people were total angels, to take these refugees into their homes, and to share with them the food that they had.

"Gail, this is amazing. Honestly, the people in this town are good people; don't ever let me hear anyone say otherwise." Riss was adamant in this statement.

Gail just agreed. "I put it to them that other people who belong in our town are missing. I told them that I hoped other towns just like ours were taking care of our people, so we should do the same for the refugees." She was right about saying this to the townspeople that they had chosen and asked to take the refugees in. It was something a lot of them had thought about, and so it struck a nerve. So many people in Jericho had friends and family that were missing from when the bombs went off, and not all of them held hope they would be coming back.

Riss's eyes misted over a little at this statement. She thought about her own friends and family back in Australia, and her friends over here in the other states of America that she had no idea about, and hoped that they were all safe.

"I'm just warning you though, that we may have to fight for this decision to happen without Gray making our lives a living hell." Gail honestly had no qualms about just knocking Gray out and tying him up so they had no arguments from that corner but she knew this had to be out in the open at the town meeting for it to work permanently, or at least until things started to get back to normal.

Riss spoke up finally, having finished her meal.

"I'm happy to fight this guy for my friends. We all came here together Gail, we are close knit now, and I won't abandon them, no matter what happens. I want to be there with Roger tonight, and I won't see them not allowed the same kindnesses to be shown to them that I have been shown since I have been here. It just wouldn't be fair otherwise. " Riss was very sure in her statement, and Gail thought she had never heard as much steely resolve in anyone's voice as she could hear in Riss's at that moment.

"Oh and just to warn you too, Emily, Roger's fiancée is on the warpath just to top it all off." Gail stopped for a second, and thought she heard Riss draw in a sharp breath. Gail looked at her, and saw nothing to betray it on Riss's face so she continued.

"Emily isn't happy about Roger being seated with the refugees at tonight's meeting. We designated an area for them to sit while the meeting is going on so that they could be in the same room with everyone else because they deserve to know what is going on, and Emily seems to think that Roger should be sitting with her, as he is a citizen of the town. You know Roger though. It's not that he doesn't want to sit with Emily, it's that he feels such a sense of leadership to your group that he wants to be there to support them."

Gail supported Roger's decision of doing this fully. She knew that Emily had been behaving strangely since he had come back, and she was beginning to think it had something to do with the amount of time that Emily and Jake had spent together while Roger was gone.

Gail just shook her head. She didn't want Emily and Jake to become involved again, but she feared something had happened. If it had, then Roger and Emily's relationship was on a downhill track to start with. Emily could never keep away from Jake, even to the exclusion of all the other people in her life.

To be continued.

_A/N: I realise this chapter was mostly chat, but i needed it to set up some stuff in the future. Its background and things will be important in the end. And it helped to get Jess and Riss on the same page too. So my apologies for it not being very fast moving. I have actually stopped writing on this story, but i had this chapter and one more sitting on my computer so i thought i would upload them in the hopes that it might inspire me to start writing again ( I need to finish watching season 2 now that they have decided they may do a Jericho movie.)_


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